MY FAVORITE DAYS
I have written of this day when it happened. But it’s the far away reflection of it that seems most meaningful now.
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This is me at a time I wasn’t feeling like me much at all.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say it was a “new me.”
I like the sound of that.
I was strong that day, even though I had just completed six rounds of chemotherapy, something so foreign to who I am. But there I was, climbing into a boat. This woman who had endured much. And I felt so free. Partly because I had left behind a hard season. Partly because there was no hair to worry over as the wind tossed us about.
I have traveled light years in this recent chapter of my life. Between this day [of bald head tucked under my cap] and today, there have been no aimless repetitions of days seemingly washing one into the other like the waves rolling under the hull.
Nearly five years ago, the biggest surprise of my life came in the form of a surgeon’s voice on the other end of the line. It was an ordinary Tuesday…or at least I thought it was.
That day taught me there are no routine moments, each one, while we’re still breathing, is an extraordinary event.
The idea of routine confounds me. Tuesday is not like Friday at all. When I attempt to tuck my yesterday into today nothing seems to fit. “But yesterday came so easy,” we contemplate. “Why is today just so hard?”
Cameron drove the boat that day. I gazed off in the distance, focusing on something not quite of this Earth. From one end of the lake to the other we pointed the boat into the waves, enjoying the thrill of being tossed about.
Being. Tossed. About.
I have become a seeker of life’s surprises, craving something bigger than all the agendas I’ve coveted and kept. And I am in the habit, now, of expecting what I least expect.
One day is not at all like the other. Each has a mind of its own—surprises, interruptions, obstacles, delays. Every change in the anticipated trajectory signals God’s intentions are at play.
Overboard with my agenda if my agenda is other than His.
Late that afternoon the thunder came rolling in. You can see the clouds fighting with the blue skies in the distance. The blue skies ultimately gave way. But there was something mysterious and haunting about the darkness invading the day.
I have come to cautiously measure the value of my premeditated intent, placing it in second position to the unexpected opportunities to change my trajectory, my course, my mind to some small or great extent.
If there is one image that is emblematic of who I want to be, it’s the woman with the bald head under that cap—not only a picture of resilience but more of a willingness to be transformed.
Wednesday isn’t Friday. This week won’t be like the next. There is power in giving in to “what is” instead of what was calendared and planned—
To give up our need for sameness,
To let go of the safety of routine,
To make room for interruptions,
To trust the grand agenda we don’t see.
Nearly five years since standing in Cameron’s outboard motor boat, there is still a part of me that braces for the waves. But I’m definitively not the cautious, fearful woman that I once was.
I am less rigid with the demands I set upon myself.
And I have stopped comparing what is accomplished from one day to the next.
Most of all, I am learning to lean into the hardest moment with the eagerness that has accompanied my favorite days…
knowing with every fiber of my being that the outcome is His.
NOTES
It is said that more than half of Jesus’ miracles were interruptions to His day. Even the God of the Universe stopped what he was doing and made room for something unexpected to take place.
I have written of the Unexpected [links below], the unscripted moments that aren’t found on any calendar or wished for in our hearts. The two entries were written as parenthesis—the first one after my cancer diagnosis. The second one just five months before. The two experiences couldn’t be more different, although in otherworldly ways they elicited the same response in me—that is, a fascination that only life’s surprises can script.
If you are seeking the transformation in your spaces that begins with a change in you…I’m your guide.
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