Perspective Shift

A pansy growing in the most unusual place - between the pavers on our back patio.  We don't have pansies in our landscaping, so I guess it seeded from a planter from last summer?  I'm not sure.  It is however a tangible reminder that strange things happen and that there can be beauty in the strange.

My beautiful pink/coral peonies have turned white and are slowly letting go of their petals.  Surrender can be simple and beautiful while tinged with sad.

The light always breaks through.  The dark does not win.  We may be walking in the the cloudiness now, but the light will break through.

There is no changing the hard, the scared the uncertainty or the sad that I have recently shared.  There is no way to wrangle time to make it pass faster.  There is nothing that we can do that will change the outcome of Jonah's next scan.  These are the hard things that are true.  These are the things that demand a response to "and then so what?".  And then so what if you can't make time go faster?  And then so what if you can't change the outcome of the scan?  How do we respond to things that are hard and true?

We have a choice.  We can struggle through these next weeks, consumed by fear and grief - letting sadness be our closest companion.  Would anyone fault us?  Doubtful.  Would it make those hard true things different?  No.  The other option is to take the time to sit with the hard feelings, recognize what we can control and then live.  Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of the next few weeks would be if we failed to see the beauty, the joy, the love and the other small gifts that God places in each day because we were too consumed with sorrow.

This is my goal in the next few weeks - to live.  To find the laughter, the joy, the happiness.  To feel love and hope.  To see outside of myself to appreciate the beauty of spring, the sparkle in my children's eyes, the shrieks of happy play.  I have no doubt there will be moments of sadness or fear that break through, but I do not what to be consumed.  We do not know what the future will hold, none of us do, but I do not want to look back in regret, realizing that I missed the chance to live.

At these thoughts of living have been swirling in my head today, they have interspersed with an old hymn - I Surrender All, by Judson Wheeler Van Deventer, and so it is that with text that I leave you....

All to Jesus I surrender

All to Him I freely give

I will ever love and trust Him

In His presence daily live

All to Jesus I surrender

Humbly at His feet I bow

Worldly pleasures all forsaken

Take me, Jesus, take me now,

I surrender all

I surrender all

All to Thee my blessed Savior

I surrender all

All to Jesus I surrender

Make me Savior wholly thine

May Thy Holy Spirit fill me

May I know Thy power divine

I surrender all

I surrender all

All to Thee my blessed Savior