A Second To Spare

Every year as I ponder Christmas, I ask the LORD to make it more real to me.  I don’t want to get caught up in the hustle of bustle of trying to perfect things that, in reality, don’t make much difference.  I mean, I love Christmas lights and buying gifts, but my outdoor display of Christmas spirit will not be the piece of Christmas that truly changes a persons’ life forever. 

As I ponder this year, the thought that keeps coming back to me is how life can be forever changed in one short second.  I mean really, isn’t that a HUGE piece of what the Christmas story is about.  In one short second the world was changed for eternity, never to be the same.  OK, don’t get me wrong.  I know that child birth takes more than a split second.  I have been there, 3 times, but there came a second, one amazing second, where the Christ child was thrust into this world, took his first breath, and changed the course of history.  It got me thinking.

What do I do with my seconds?  If a split second is all it takes, then what can one do with that second?  Here are a few things I came up with:

   - Say “I’m sorry.”

   - Choose to forgive, even after years of holding a grudge.

   -  Buy the person in line behind you at Starbucks a coffee.

   - Tell your children or someone in your life that you love them.

   - Give someone a hug.

   - Choose a kind word instead of an angry one in a heated situation.

   - Let someone merge into your lane, even when you’re in a hurry.

           

Anyway – there’s many more, but you get the point.  The choices that we make in one second have the power to change another persons’ life and our own.  We may not always feel like it, but we all have a second to spare.  What will you do with yours?

Sowing Seeds

When you have a child at age 15, it adds some messy dynamics to your life.  When you get married 4 years later and terminate parental rights of that child's biological father, things get even messier, in a sense.  It was easy to go on with life, and forget the past, but it wasn't just my past to be forgotten.  What goes on in the mind of a small child when the father figure they once knew bails and a new one takes his place?  What happens in their heart when those ties are broken, even if for their own good?

It's not like we never talked about it with our son over the past several years, we did.  We asked questions like, "Do you think about him?  Do you have questions about him?" and made sure he knew that he could always talk to us about his biological dad.  It was just never really anything of importance, until a few weeks ago.

It is a strange thing when our past invades our present and makes things, well, messy again.  I received a request from our sons biological father to begin writing to him.  I was conflicted.  I could feel the mama bear rising up in me, wanting to protect our son from any harm, and at the same time the realization hit that this man is his past too.  He is becoming a young man and there are areas of his heart that need healing and reconciliation from that past.  It was not my decision to make, it was his.

The first letter came last week.  I opened it, of course, and read it.  There was true recognition of the hurt and pain that was caused and a deep repentance.  It was genuine and real.  I watched as my son read it (after he rolled his eyes at me for opening it first- however, in my defense I would have had to wait 4 hours for him to get home from school and open it).  His face was serious as he read through then folded it up and put it in his back pocket.  "I'm keeping this so I can read it again," he said.  I could tell it was precious to him.

A few days later he came down the steps, carrying his own letter.  I read the letter.  I cried.  Were these really the words of my 13 year old son - the same kid who had pummeled his little sister and left his dirty clothes all over the bathroom floor?   There was forgiveness and a genuine desire to get to know the man on the other end of that letter.  There was encouragement through scripture, Psalms 32:5 and Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See I am doing a new thing!" and a call to continue to press on.  Misspellings and all, it was real, it was genuine, and it flowed from a heart of love.  I could not have been more proud or humbled in that moment.  


So, we begin a journey towards a messy reality and choose to believe that it will be one full of healing and life.  "See I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:19.  AMEN!