Sometimes life EXHAUSTS me. I don’t know any other way of putting it. Sometimes I feel like I expend the majority of my energy trying to get it right, rather than actually engaging in whatever it is I am doing. I think part of the reason I have such a terrible memory is because so much of the time I am concentrating on what’s going on in my head, instead of what I am actually doing. And there are only two places I can go when I am in my head, the past or the future, and both are bad neighborhoods. Trying to be in two places at once is exhausting and ultimately impossible.  So constantly managing the shuffle between the two is EXHAUSTING.

I know that’s not what life is supposed to feel like, I know that’s not how God wants me to live out the time He gave me….. But that’s what life has felt like of late…..That being said, today was profoundly different – – like a-whole-other-life-different. And nothing changed but my perspective.

If you had to distill the essence of this post, you could do it by examining the difference between “taking the dogs for a walk” and “taking a walk with the dogs.” It’s a subtle, but powerful shift of perspective. If I look at my life as a to-do list, I grow weary, disengaged, lonely and resentful. If I view life as moments strung together like pearls from God, I am going to want to examine the luster of each one of those moments, engagements, chores, and encounters in a profoundly different way. I am going to want to live them, not just do them.

Am I engaging in my life, or just going through the motions? Do I spend my time checking boxes or actually being present in each of the activities that are on my list? Life, always demands that list, but how I go through it determines the quality of my life. I think my day was so different today because I managed to show up for the present  – – to find the luster God had tucked away in the moments usually lost in that mad and endless quest to get-it-done.

And that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to drag myself back to the present moment about 1000 times today, I did, but I didn’t beat myself up about that – – I just noticed I was in my head, worrying about something that had either already happened or had not yet occurred, and I gently brought myself back to the present moment and prayed that God would keep me there. I have to tell you, it worked. And the effect was remarkable. I had the kind of peace, all day, I have not experienced in a long time. And today was nothing special, in fact it was full of the kind of chores I least like doing: shopping, exchanging, returning, spending as much time in the car as out of it….just a regular day, trying to keep life afloat in a family of five.  But I found unexpected joy and peace in the living of it. The quality of my days ultimately determines the quality of my life and if I could string together some days like today, I would be building a legacy of abiding in Him.

Today was a quiet “internal” day and a vibrant external day. It was a day when I went easy on myself. Every time I got frustrated (which I noticed was remarkably often) I would remind myself to “reconnect,” be present, engage in the moment, don’t wish it away or want to get through it but actually experience it. I prayed countless times today for the strength and focus and calm to return to the present, just in that moment. And it worked, and it didn’t bother me that I had to “recalibrate” so many times – – I wasn’t sitting there judging myself on how well on did on STAYING in the moment, I simply was an observer, who was willing to constantly redirect my own attention, again and again and again, back to the now. What a lovely way to live….being nudged, with love, by the Spirit of God, back to the only place He can bless me.

At the Burlington Coat factory I saw a guy buying his son and himself matching shirts, one for a six year old and one for an adult. They were lime green. And the little shirt had a matching vest that came with it. He kept running back for price checks and I could tell he was debating, “One or both?” It must have been for a wedding or celebration of some sort. When he left the line for the third time, I arranged with the clerk to buy both for him, and I was able to sneak out before he returned.  And just like that the trip became not about the long line and the wait but about the gift – – and not the gift for him, but the gift for me.

In line at Marshall’s instead of looking at all the yummies along the checkout line, I played peek a boo with a little girl who looked like she might have been from Peru. Her big brown eyes were so beautiful, they made me want to cry. She looked at me in that long, direct and undisturbed way only children can. I love to be looked at that way; it allows me to look back.

At Bed Bath and Beyond, I had to enlist the help of Craig, who was unbelievably helpful in distinguishing shades of green and teal and blue. As it turned out, Craig didn’t work at BB&B, he was just very nice and very helpful and right on hue.

And then when I got home, instead of getting everything JUST SO, unpacked and ready for the morning, checking off my list as I went, I spent time with Bateman.  Nearly taller than me now, she crawled in my lap in the big chair, spilling bits of quinoa, one bite at a time, as she and I watched Olympic Show Jumping on You Tube, and had snacks.  Can I tell you, it may not seem glamorous in the retelling, but my day was RICH.

Between it all, I was able to do a few loads of laundry, make a meal, clean up as I went along, tend to the dogs, and really enjoy the evening. Slow, no real agenda, just time together in real life. Those are the important things. Time with my kids, relationship with those I love, time with God – – I got to do all of those things today and tonight as I am getting ready for bed, I don’t have the sense that my life is careening by, or that the day was wasted, I feel fulfilled, tired, content…but not exhausted, worn down or dreading another day.

I have always lived my life going, going, going, and trying to save up rest for later. But life doesn’t work that way. And even when I try and find rest later in all sorts of diversions, it doesn’t actually give me rest, because rest, like everything other gift from God, lives in the “right now.”

Life lived in real time is RICH, and needs no diversion. I didn’t need People.com tonight or even a mini binge on Hulu. I didn’t need to decompress from my day, because I actually lived my day. Life lived in real time doesn’t seek escape. I was able to breathe in the moments of my day today, by simply reminding myself – – again and again and again – – to be present, to be where I was.

Time is a gift from God – – that’s why they call it the present.

A few months ago, I had driven into the city, and was late for an appointment in Northwest D.C. I managed to find parking and make it into the building, with just enough time for a pit stop before my appointed time. As I came careening out of the bathroom and into the lobby, I turned toward the bank of elevators, and very nearly collided with my husband. As it turned out, in all of D.C., we found each other in front of the same bank of elevators, in the same building, at the exact same moment.

And that wasn’t the only surprise. When I saw him, my heart literally leapt. I was happy in a way I had not experienced since our dating days when it took a taxi ride, two shuttles and a connecting flight to see him. That moment in the lobby was a mix of joy and butterflies. Delight and attraction. Surprise and anticipation. It was love. Love was the first thing that jumped out of me when, for once, I didn’t have time to prepare a response.

What made that response remarkable, because I do love my husband, was that we had parted that morning in the midst of a really big argument. One of those messy ones in which one issue leads to another and the past becomes an off-sides arsenal of weapons with casualties on both sides. It was one of those arguments that chips away at the goodness of things. Really the worst we had had in a while, and although fights like that are part and parcel of a real relationship, this one had left a mark. That being said, in the moment of reunion, in the lobby of that building, there was absolutely nothing left of those churned-up, hurt and angry feelings. Love had championed the moment in such an overwhelming and dominant way that no other sentiment was even vying for real estate.

Had I not run into him in the lobby, I would have most likely reunited with him that evening. I would have heard him come down the driveway and walk through the back door, and chances are, the reunion would have been very different. And that really made me think. It made me think of why I would want a somber, simmering meeting compared to the one I just experienced in the lobby which was really pretty extraordinary.

In the instant of reunion, context was so wholly displaced that the only experience I had room for was the present moment – – sans baggage. It was a moment of clarity that felt like a rare window, a gift offered to me for a reason. So I decided to look deeper into how love informed that moment.

The truth is, I think God gives me an endless supply of love and I dole it out as I see fit. I think He pours it into me and I pick and choose how to divvy it up.

I think about when God gave the Israelites manna (bread) from Heaven…it literally fell from the sky to sustain them every day for their years in the wilderness. But God’s explicit instructions were for them take what they needed for just one day without storing it up for later – – He gave them portions to be used, not kept. I think that’s the way God gives – – because He has an endless supply of everything – – but my natural inclination is to keep my portion and appoint myself chief distribution officer of all God-given things. But that’s not the way it is supposed to work.

Once God gives me access to something, whether it’s manna or love, patience or forgiveness, He has already done the grand distribution, he just wants me to use up what He gave me, either channel it to others, experience it myself, or more often than not, both. He gives me the fruit of His Spirit not to stockpile or withhold, but to use with abandon.

I withheld no good thing from my husband in that lobby. He saw my delight, unrestrained, unsullied by expectation or history. It was like no other moment I had ever experienced. And it was a moment in which His spirit, not mine was at work.

I can do just about everything in love. And I can give it away in so many different packages. Sometimes it’s firm, sometimes romantic, sometimes direct, sometimes tender, sometimes it doesn’t say a word as it works itself out in action, sometimes it’s just my presence, other times it looks like forgiveness, or sounds like truth.

Jesus didn’t withhold his love from the very people who had just nailed him to the cross…. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do….” And not only does Christ forgive the men who are in the process of killing him, but he actually rises to their defense before God. He loves them in astounding ways. There really is no end to the ways I can express the Love to which God has given me access – – it’s whether I choose to love or not that is the question.

I have a friend, Heidi, who with a wave of her hand says to me, “Be released.” It’s what God did for me in the lobby. I was full of feelings about my husband that day, and God waved his hand and said, “Be released…” Be released to the love that is in you for Him…. Be released from the bondage of anger, be released from the weight of being judge and jury, be released from being right, be released to enjoy the fruits of MY spirit, not yours….Be released to love with abandon….and leave everything else to Me.

It is a saving grace that I am to love others as GOD loves me – – as the broken person I am. C.S. Lewis implores his readers to approach God “as you are not as you ought to be.” God loves us as we are. Can I not free myself to love others as they are? Isn’t that how I long to be loved myself? What if I trusted God with Tim, enough to love him unreservedly, generously, kindly, leaving his broken places to God’s tinkering and not my own. What if I granted Tim the benefit of the doubt, no matter what? What if I let grace play a huge role in our relationship? Would any of that diminish me in any way? Or would it simply make things better, regardless of his response?

At the center of me is this overwhelming desire to be loved…, just exactly as I am. For me, receiving that kind of love is the real fuel for life, and is the fatwood for all measure of hope and joy. I have a genuine need to be loved through the grace of those who know me the best. Grace-fueled love heals and sustains. I crave grace-filled love. I know I don’t deserve it, but when I get it makes me better. It’s like a chemical equation that makes no scientific sense. But it ignites in me a place that is of God.  And grace-fueled love…it enables and empowers me to love others in the same way.

We all need that kind of love. I want to be a source of grace-fueled love to the people around me. And if I can get over myself, blow up the list of wrongs I sometimes wield and just shower folks with love instead; if I can listen and show a little restraint with my words and let that Love just slip on by FIRST before anything else comes out, miraculous things happen. Healing happens. Relationship happens. Tenderness and friendship happens. A new history is written…And God, not me, is conducting the show. But when I lead with what’s on my mind, what I need to resolve, what the problem might be, where the injustice occurred or continues to occur, I lose. Relationship is diminished, and fades into oblivion behind the glare of conflict, defensiveness and repeated, fruitless cycles of destruction.

The “baggage” I have with people is not my real baggage. My real baggage is the love I don’t share with them. Stored up love tethers me to unforgiveness and pride. Hoarded love shackles me to selfishness and blame, anger (justifiable or not) and resentment. Holding onto love, withholding it from others, when I dress it all down, is a simple unwillingness to subjugate myself to God. But when I loose the love that is already in me, I experience real freedom – – like that moment in the lobby.

I was designed to love. That’s how God made me. He didn’t construct me in a way in which I can contain the love I am holding for others. That hurts me and others too much. It goes against my Divine design. And when I share the love I have in me, I get to experience the power of God’s ‘greatest of these’ gifts. The challenge is to love like that first, regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of what comes back. Simple, but not easy. The challenge is to lead in God’s currency, no matter what. It’s a powerful proposition, fueled by the Divine ability to transform single moments into magic and a lifetime into His will and not my own.

My job is to love, no matter what…like Jesus on the cross.