July 25, 2013

Does anyone but me ever feel lost and uncertain of where their future is heading?  It seems as though since I became a single mom over 7 years ago that's been a constant feeling I've lived with; albeit quiet at times and other times screaming in my ear.  I fully understand living in the moment for this is the only moment we are ever guaranteed, but man is it hard.  From the child wanting something and the bill collectors calling, there are days that for me living the moment is a laugh.  However when I have found myself doing just that, living in the moment just focusing on the task at hand, it is truly amazing the transformation that occurs.  The noise dies down, the worry subsides and I actually see my son or the person I'm visiting with as a gift that has been given to me to share in that one and only guaranteed moment.  It is when I take my focus off of that one moment that the worry floods back in and the hard-to-breathe moments race back where I feel how am I going to make it through today let alone pay the bills at the end of the month.  I have begun to realize over the years of living as a struggling single mom that not only is each moment, each day a gift but also a work in progress and that the final picture, the end result of how we've lived, is something that will only be obtained when we leave this earth.  The struggles, the stresses, the worries are all just something that comes along to prepare us for something greater.  How we handle each moment as it comes continuously prepares us for something greater than ourselves and this world.  I have heard it explained that it is like God is making a quilt and we only see the underside the messy, zig-zaggy lines of stitches going this way and that and only God sees us as the finished product, the beautiful top side of the quilt and it won't be until we get to the other side that we too will see that finished product and know why we were handed the struggles we were in our earthly lives.  It's not easy to take when life is getting us down but I guess this is where faith comes in.