Breathing room

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The week leading up to Easter weekend this year, as part of my focus, my reflection upon this season of my life, my prayers, my meditations, my seeking greater space and breathing room-I determined it was time for me to depart social media.  I had been thinking about it last year just prior to the holidays and the impending presidential election year of 2024.  So I did just that, and it has been precisely what my heart and my mind needed.  Since my Mom died in January, I have been thinking and internalizing a lot more with the goal to refresh, renew, re-focus.   This season of experiencing simultaneous grief and peace has sharpened my internal perspective far more than any other time in my life.  The reality is as life rolls on day after day, month after month, year after year, the rhythm of life brings a level of comfort and complacency for all of us.  The unexpected can shake us, awaken us to a part of ourselves deep down that we didn't know was there.  It's the part of us that is only fully awakened when we realize we don't have control, that we are truly helpless to the ebb and flow that is life.  That we are absolutely and most certainly in the hands of God.  Losing my Mom-the woman I knew and loved all my life before the disease took her from me so mercilessly-triggered in me a flood of reflection upon who she was to me and who I was to be.  Who she was to me?   This woman of immense faith in Christ, servant-hearted, kind, full of joy and unconditional love for anyone she knew well or had just met, Sister, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Aunt, Friend and Child of God......she influenced me in so many ways.  So who am I to be now?  How do I find the strength and the motivation to step forward in life without her here?  I am who I am because of how she loved, how she spoke truth, how she held me accountable, how she mentored and disciplined me to not only make it in this life but make my life a little better every single day.  On my best days and my worst days, I had the same reason to keep living, moving, and being.  I am finding as the time passes since she left this earth, I have new breathing room.   I am choosing to stop and listen in the stillness, rest in the presence of God, trust and surrender far more as He is re-writing this portion of my life story to reflect more of Him.   

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