Today...

I am focusing on the moment. This moment. What is my life, right now? I am God's, and I'm learning to take ownership of myself. I am Christian, and Jesus Christ is my Savior. I am an abuse survivor, which colors everything. My hope is that in sharing my struggle, someone else will feel like they are not alone, like they will rise above the past. I've lived almost half a century. My furry children are no longer with me. I miss them. The career choice I thought would take me through the next decade is vanishing. I've seen a lot, done a lot, learned a lot. I'm nowhere near where I dreamed of finding myself. I've lived at home my whole life, with stints on three different continents. Today, I found the front door open, closed it and locked it. Not the first time. I've worked more than a dozen different jobs, mostly unrelated to each other, and am looking at starting something new, again, but that's for another day. Today is about today. I'm overweight. My back is a mess, a reflection of my life in so many ways, but I'm learning to accept and make the best of it. I have limited eating options that don't fit the "world's" concept of healthy. I have a deep and abiding love for cooking that has survived all my changes and explorations, a love that started before my Easy-Bake Oven, which sealed it. My wide-ranging interests have waxed and waned over the years, but this one is ever present. And I'm good at it. Experimenting with recipes and taste-testing food is fun. I am a bibliophile. I have read over a thousand different authors (in the last five years alone). I have a list of 725 authors I probably won't buy again, and 62 authors that are currently on my must-buy list. And I keep exploring new ones. Books open doors to places and people I want to visit. I am conservative, really conservative, regardless of growing up in a very liberal home. I have a king-size cathedral-window style quilt that I created, because my sister started it and didn't want to finish it. I have pillows and a lap quilt on my bed that I designed and created. I enjoy my interesting collection of dishes, related to the cooking thing, I'm sure. I tend to avoid sleeping, in an effort to dodge nightmares. I have an absolutely amazing circle of friends, who have blessed me beyond measure in more ways than I ever imaged possible. My interests are more varied than ever before in my life. I'm embracing my interests more wholeheartedly than ever before in my life. It's helpful, from time to time, to take a moment and take stock of one's life. In this Easter week, the last supper has occurred and the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew what was coming, and accepted it because of his boundless love for each and everyone of us. I cannot earn my way into Heaven by being perfect, by doing everything expected of me, by making sure everything is always right. Jesus Christ beseeches me to become as a little child. An abuse survivor doesn't understand the concept. Innocence was destroyed and forgotten. I am asked to give my heart to Jesus. It wasn't so long ago that I tried to do exactly that. I visualized myself gathering up all the broken pieces and handing them to my Savior. I stood in a wide open field, and to my dismay the pieces kept blowing away. The faster I tried to gather them, the more they scattered. When I paused to look about me, to see where the pieces had blown, my breath stuck in my throat to see tiny shreds sprinkled like confetti as far as the eye could see, and I knew the pieces reached far beyond what I could see. How could I possibly gather up all the pieces? How could Jesus make my heart whole when there were so many pieces seemingly irrevocably lost? At the time, I felt hopeless. Gradually, I'm endeavoring to remember that Jesus knows where all the tattered pieces may be found. He asks me to do as much as I am able, not because He can't do it, but because He knows how much I will learn and grow through the journey. He's already walked the path, and has volunteered to traverse the road with me. It is up to me to accept His help or not. It's good to remember that His idea of help is not always my idea of help, but His way is perfect. Today, I'm not where many would think I should be, including me, sometimes. Today, I look back, and reflect and learn and accept. This is where I am right this moment.