Living Like You Were Dying has become a mantra for me in a way. I think God supports this when he says we are a vapor and vanish.

Wow! I turned 50 this past year. It was a year of many first and many changes. Although I had been divorced 10 years it was the first year I had ever lived alone in my life, the first experience with an empty nest, the first time I adventured back into the dating world. Splat! Oh well, I tried, I’ll soar again in God’s time, that wasn’t pretty. This year I had a car wreck which was topped by my daughter totaling my spare car. I had a cancer scare that made me realize how sweet time is. I jumped out of the rat race taking a 40% pay cut by changing jobs. Life is too short to be stressed instead of blessed. I sold my home in SC and cut ties with the past and my security blanket back there. You can’t move forward looking in the rearview mirror. When your faith and fear collide, and they always will, you have to choose to keep pressing on.

The year was filled with so many great things. A great ministry to volunteer time that helps people get back in their race, a praise team at church that sees something in me that I am still learning about myself and some really great people who taught me, encouraged me, stretched me, crushed me and humbled me in so many ways that I can’t begin to explain. It’s called life though. Jesus walked Peter to the boat in a storm not on calm seas. Jesus is walking me through this journey and where I see the lesson I am learning, where I don’t see, God patiently and graciously walks me through again. Wow! how loving is our Father to do that. I love the abundant life God has given me. Not things, they pass away but the blessings that are too many to tell and too many to not see the hand of God.

Sometimes I ponder things and wonder if seeking direction with the Lord is as important as simply following where he is leading. Does that sound conflicted? Let me tell you what that means to me. Sometimes we see a path and ask the Lord to confirm it when maybe the path opening before us is the confirmation. God says that he opens doors man can’t shut and he shuts doors man can’t open in Revelation 3:8. You might refuse the door but it isn’t closed. It’s open and always will be for eternity. You will just miss the journey if you don’t’ go through it. I used to be one that would see the path, second guess myself, second guess the path and even the bricks it was paved with. My over analyzing and also my own conclusion that I was right in my analyzing would muddle the path and muddle me. By the time I started the first step on the path, if hadn’t of thought my way out of it, I was restless, uncertain and already thinking of plan B. In my mind seeking God’s direction was more of me analyzing what was best for me and hoping God endorsed it to happen that way. The learning curve on that can be as long as you want it to be. God has plenty of time to wait for you to surrender to him.

Grant it, life is hard and being vulnerable and taking risks is hard. Yet when God lays a path before us we need to go for it like we are dying. We need to not waste sweet time second guessing God and thinking the impossible can’t happen. If it looks too good why can’t it be from God? He says he uses the foolish things to confound the wise. He also says he gives good gifts to his children. He even said finding a wife is a good thing. We are not in a minefield with God. He has a clear path, clear plan and clear say regarding the matter. He said nothing was impossible with him.

It would be nice if we all could spend time in heaven like the little boy did in the book Heaven Is For Real. If we could understand that Jesus really loves all his children. If we could love and trust like children do! Oh My! I teared up reading how this little boy told his parents that as a four year old Jesus had the angels sing to him because he was so scared. I am not sure the angels will sing the song above to me and evidently they won’t sing We Will We Will Rock You either. Read the book and get the gist of that comment. When Lazarus died he was sitting in Abraham’s bosom and this little boy is sitting in the arms of Jesus. I don’t think there is a coincidence in the parallel.

I am sure the sweet time we waste on earth would minimize if we had an eternal perspective. So, when the path opens before me, unless God says NO! There’s no reason not to go through that door. It might look like spiritual skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing or bull riding and I am positive it’s not always pretty or rosy. But it’s the race! It’s the plan to move forward and God is passionately loving us with abandon and cheering us on. The sweet time I have left I hope to love deeper, speak sweeter and forgive sooner. I want to live like I am dying because I am in all reality. When I get to heaven if I can ever look up at Jesus because I can’t imagine the glorified awe I will have for him. I am totally blown away now by his grace. If hear the angels sing I hope they sing this song. But if they don’t … I am sure whatever they sing will never be as loud as the heartbeat of God for this little gal he has declared priceless and purchased so no one else can buy me.