I love when Jack Nicholson, in the midst of his character’s disastrous life, asks “What if this is As Good As It Gets?” It’s a question worth asking. Because this – – whatever is right now – – IS as good as it gets. In fact it’s all we get.

“Improving my life” is a cycle I can repeat in the same predictable circles, without ever managing to visit the present. I can be terminally busy with the minutia of some master plan that never seems to run into “right now.”

When Nicholson asks “What if this is as good as it gets,” it is an invitation to live fully, engage, not with some long range plan, but with the people around me, in the moment I am in. It is a call to stop being the constant observer, the interminable planner and the incessant critic – – to put down my bullhorn and take off my director’s cap, and to jump into the scene itself. It is a plea to stop pausing every fifteen minutes to take my own and everyone else’s emotional temperature and simply participate.

Too often, I run around thinking, “If I believe, if I Trust in God, if I pray, and if I do it right, my life will somehow fall into place, become easier… better…different.” Like the whole notion of this journey is to get somewhere other than where I am. After years of trying to cram this idea down life’s throat, I am finally convinced that’s not what God meant, when he said “Follow me…”

So back to Jack. What if I believed my life was perfect as it was. With all the not-knowing, with all the ungracefulness, with all the doubts, with all the unanswered questions, with all the circumstances that aren’t going the way I want them to. What if I ceased living my life on the battlefield of how it is vs. how I want it to be, and realized, as Jack did, that this IS as good as it gets. These ARE the good old days and right now IS the gift. That changes things. It forces me to look for the gift within the moment, not the gift to be created with the ingredients of the moment. The gift is already there, fully formed, just waiting to be recognized. It’s not up to me to manufacture the gift, because the gift of the moment is always from God rather than my own efforts, ingenuity or design.

Sometimes I imagine God hearing what goes through my head and bursting out laughing, taking me in His arms and saying, “Sweetie, that’s not what I meant… No wonder you are so tired/frustrated/disappointed/disheartened/upset.” I think God would remind me that what he said was, “Come to me you who are weary and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light….” It’s a choice. A decision. A turning over of power and influence. And I love the image of the yoke – – a brace that binds two oxen together to share the weight of pulling a plow. God says, I am the strong one, I can pull this load, you bind yourself up with me and let me do the heavy lifting. God says, “Come to me,”…. It’s an invitation, NOT to work, but to rest.

God and Johnny Cash PROMISE us that “In this life you will have troubles.” I constantly forget that this isn’t our home. I have a perspective that generally takes into account everything up until early next week, not eternity, and as a Christian woman, that degree of foresight can wreak havoc.

Does this sound familiar? “If I can just make it through the holidays, if I can just make it through her junior year, if they can just get in, if I can bear with it all until vacation, if I can just make it until next Friday when I have a whole afternoon unscheduled….” None of those scenarios include living in the here and now. I live my life on fast forward waiting to get to “it.” And “it” is right now. And “it” is as good as it gets. The things I am always waiting for – – they never arrive. Because when I get there, I am already focused on the next “when.”

Jack is right. This IS as good as it gets. This is it. It’s the only thing that is ever going to happen.

There is this great line: “Surrender to win.” I am there. I am convinced it is a terminally losing battle to get life to behave. I am choosing to believe that the life that God “has planned for me…” the one intended to “prosper me not to harm me” the one He assures me will give me “hope and a future” is the one unfolding right now.

I love the passage in Philippians 4, in which the apostle Paul talks about how he has learned to be content in all circumstances. He actually wrote that line when he was in jail. I remember being in a Bible study when I first started to really believe there was a God, and I wasn’t it. I heard this passage in Ephesians that struck me then and has stayed with me since. It talked about the kind of faith that didn’t leave you at the mercy of the wind and waves in life. That is the life God promises…not the one out of the storm, but the one in which no storm is too great. God isn’t promising me an easy life. He’s not. But he is offering me a way to make it through my life without being rocked by my circumstances – – which is a different and deeper kind of life…it’s the life I have always wanted – – to be in the midst of it all and be unshakeable, strong, there for those around me, calm on the inside, filled with peace, and trusting that I am right where I am supposed to be, right now. And until I get to heaven, that’s as good as it gets.

I am doing it all wrong and I know it. I am angry. Really angry. And I am holding on to being right. Jesus never did that. He never held on to being right. He never even defended himself which is remarkable considering he always had the moral high ground…. He didn’t keep a record of wrongs, and he always forgave. Not because things were necessarily going to change, but because he is full of grace. I am full of something else right now. I am angry. Upset. Right. Harboring and holding onto injured pride and hurt feelings. I am all closed up. Eyes shut, arms folded, back turned. And I cannot seem to let it go. That’s where I am. So what do I do? I think this is when I am supposed to ask God to change my heart. But I don’t want to. Not yet.

I think this is the time I need to ask God to be with me, comfort me. Love me. Provide for me what the world and those in it cannot. Not because they are not good enough but because I am not meant to be fulfilled by those in the world, no matter how much I love them. I am meant to be fulfilled by God and then love others with the overflow. But I am not at that place. I want to be taken care of by those in the world. But that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.

I want to unfriend the people who hurt me but I cannot. I cannot because I love them too much…so much. One of the great ironies of life is that I hurt the people I love the most, and they me. My broken places wound them, just as much as their broken places cut me. It hurts so much, precisely because we love each other.

When I was little I would get mad in the exact same way, with an intensity that caught even me by surprise. I don’t remember a single thing I got mad about, but I remember every ounce of that feeling. It was a lethal combination of it’s-not-fair and you-hurt-my-feelings – – a Tasmanian cloud of emotion that would not let me go. So when I was that little and that mad, my Dad would scoop me up and hold me in his arms and I would thrash and kick and want out more than you could imagine. But he would walk to his office, me struggling to break free, talking to me in his low, smooth voice, telling me that he loved me, and that he knew… he knew… he knew… His arms were strong and loving and they didn’t stop me from flailing but they prevented me from falling. Those arms held me in the midst of my first true embrace. It was an I-love-you-no-matter-what hold. Full of strength and grace and tenderness, all at once. It was firm and loving and safe and immoveable. His love was never subject to my mood. It was truly unconditional. And the longer he held me, the more my thrashing only served to drive me closer to him, head tucked into his shoulder, arms folded between me and his chest, legs eventually going limp. There was something about being loved through the thrashing, that made the need to thrash go away. Being loved through the thrashing counted more than regular love and had a more profound effect. It made me feel safe; it made everything o.k., even though nothing had changed.

So perhaps I need to go and thrash around with God because He loves me like that. He won’t let me go. He will say, I know… I know…I know… until I grow tired of flailing around and fall into Him, synchronizing my breath with His, and finding calm again. Peace again. My dad was amazing at giving me that time and space in such wonderful proximity to him. And God is even better. He never tires of me, no matter how I come to Him. He always wants me, no matter what condition I am in. He never takes my moods personally. In God, there is always a place to start over, a place of redemption, and love and acceptance. And His love? It makes it better. It’s the only thing that does.