The Right Now

"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanenty, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity--in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits--islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continually visited and abandoned by the tides . . . ."
-Anna Morrow Lindbergh

How often in any relationship do we think, "Do you remember that time when we did that one thing, at that one place, at that one time?" Reminiscing is sweet and fun but it does not get us anywhere. And how often do we think, "If only this friendship were like this. Then, everything would be good between us."

That's not how it's supposed to be. God gave us THIS moment. We are supposed to embrace what we have right here, right now. I'm sure you've heard this before but have you lived it?

About a week or so ago, I wrote on my hand "Right now". I had been thinking about the future. Not the big future, like a career, but the little future. My parents were coming for family weekend, I HAD to get my homework done, work was really boring and I wanted to be elsewhere. I was thinking about all these things outside of my control and God yanked my collar, saying, "Jana, stop looking so far ahead. Breathe me in in this moment. Think about the present."

This is such a hard thing to do. We want to plan and organize and arrange because maybe if we do that just enough...everything will work out perfectly. Who are we kidding? God, the perfect master of time an plans, has every single day of your life planned out. Why are you worried?