"Someday can be a seductive word. It carries intent and promise, that certain things will eventually be part of our lives. But it also lets us off the hook. Is there anything in your life that's living in the distant could of "someday"? What's keeping you from moving and working toward it now?
When you are living out your
somedays it is hard to ponder what else could be. While sweeping the floor one
evening a few weeks ago, this realization came to me yet again. Everything I
have ever wanted is before me, in my hand.
In junior high English, we had to
write a letter to our future self. The self that was graduating and moving
beyond public education. It was a letter stating the hopes and dreams of our
junior high self. What we thought life would look like at the time we dawned
our green and white graduation caps and tassels and what it currently looked
like as we scrolled the letters across the page, sitting in our brown desks.
I never ended up receiving my
letter after graduation, perhaps all the moving and lack of address made it difficult to find
its way to my doorstep. But my somedays were pretty generic and easy to recall.
Someday after high school I would
go to college, majoring in teaching and minoring in writing. Someday I would
get married and someday we would have children. Someday we would probably buy a
house. And in doing those things, life would be filled and the happily ever
after must be the result.
I went to college, though
majoring in Apparel Marketing and Design as my creative side got the best of me and married one semester before graduation. Three children now
share our last name and snuggles and laughs and a cozy rental home. It is not
exactly what my twelve year old self had painted but the frame work is pretty
close, and close enough in terms of horse shoes and hand grenades, as my dad reminded
me while growing up.
Nothing is how I had pictured it
would unfold in the day to day or perhaps I never was that detailed with the
somedays. Nothing is perfect or without its challenges. Melt downs and tantrums
and spilled milk and messes of any sort make up our everyday, along with
endless lap sitting with books in hand and
swinging and piggy back rides and diaper changes.
But the frame work is solid. It
is there and it is there that gratefulness has cultivated itself against the
hard sheet rock of the daily duties and struggles to find the joy and fully embracing life.
And sometimes it can be a little
eerie and I find myself asking what else? Is there something more?
And it is there that God throws
in the surprises and reveals new mysteries and challenges and the unfolding of
his plans. It is there that thankful hearts overflow for the framework, though
in different shades and tones than could ever be imagined, and a constant
reminder of his grace and love is renewed. And all of it is nothing short of a
miracle.
Here's to somedays.
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This is part of a 365 day blogging series through Savor by Shauna Niequist. If you would like to blog along, whether daily or weekly, I would love to have you for the journey; be sure to link back to the post. And if you are not a blogger, you can join along, too. Just leave your response and answers in the comments.