No Guarantees

Thank you to all who have reached out with an outpouring of love and encouragement. I have received texts, FB and blog messages, and phone calls from friends and family both far and near. I can’t express how humbling and comforting it is to know people are actually reading this blog and are moved by what I write.

I’ve been crying a lot the past two days. Daddy has been ill for so long but I’ve never allowed myself to feel the sorrow…I have so much to be thankful for and he’s had such a wonderful life. This is the way of things. Still, the grief wells up from the pit of my stomach and overwhelms my lungs, my eyes. Wracking sobs…I am an ugly crier, hits me in random places…the grocery store parking lot, the bathtub, at a stop light. The source of this sadness is complex. Yes it’s triggered by my dad’s condition. To see a “larger than life” person whose creativity and brilliance I’ve admired and adored become an immobile infant who doesn’t recognize me is enough to cause pain. But to combine that with the stark possibility that as I’m looking at my dad stuck in that bed, I am gazing into my own future. Fast forward 20 or 30 years, will that be me? Will I have spent my alert and coherent years on earth wisely? Will I have written down honest thoughts and feelings, shared my heart freely, composed the music that flows in my veins and done all I can do to give these songs and stories life beyond my own, or will I have squandered it with laziness, blaming others, distractions that keep me from discovering the truth of who I am created to be, petty misunderstandings that keep me from the people that I love and love me most?

Heavy questions we all should ask of ourselves. There are no guarantees. What’s ironic is while yes the probability of Alzheimer’s being my destiny is significant, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow!

We can’t spend too much time worrying about the uncontrollable factors in our lives, we must focus on what is in our own hands and leave the rest in God’s.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:34‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:18‬ ‭NIV‬‬