When Tomorrow Comes

Rejoice with me! The cold symptoms I was fighting are gone...beaten! Zippidy doo dah. The combination of 50 mg of Zinc every four hours, Zicam lozenges (when I don't take the Zinc), water, and not being stupid pays off. For me it "lops the head" off the cold softening its symptoms and shortening its duration--often by about a week!

I'm back on my bike. With an end to the cold's symptoms I was able to get back into the swing again. I'd not been able to ride my bikes for almost six weeks no thanks to some serious mechanical issues and moo la la obstacles to my fixing them. Not fun. I tried to be patient and did a pretty good job. I rode my stationary bike and pretended I was on the North Mesa above where we live. That worked OK...until that cold (now history!) jumped on me; but in the meantime my bike-riding 86 year-old dad offered me some timely and gracious help. I love you dad.

I find it interesting how easily and quickly I can project life into the future. Once I get my bikes fixed everything will be OK again; once I get over this cold life will start back up; as soon as I can get this shoulder fixed I'll really be able to start living again; when we get our financial issues resolved life will feel so much better; if I could only get back to the Northwest, then life would turn right-side-up again; when the economy turns around life will feel so much better; if I could only get a full-time job, then life will really start humming again....OK, you get the idea. It's a way of thinking that tends to put "life engagement gears" in neutral.

I'm not discounting the real influence of disappointments or of discouraging and God-forbid painful circumstances. The untimely influence of a summer cold...is real for sure! The frustration of joblessness...yup; the death of a loved one...ugh, ugh, ugh; the angry pain of a tweaked shoulder...um hum; the long, frustrating displacement to bright Colorado for a person whose senses are stamped "made in the Pacific Northwest"...yeah! It's so easy to project life "out there somewhere" and then engage a struggle that's all about getting back to it. Do you get what I mean?

"God help me be where I'm at while I'm there." That's Judi's little coaching statement proposing a challenge to this projection tendency. I'm learning that it's an acquired skill and an ongoing discipline. "Being where I'm at while I'm there" requires some conscious, intentional and systematic self-examination to my perspective and my attitude in the moment.

For the Christian there is another WONDERFUL consideration or dimension to all of this. I sincerely believe my temptation to project life into an "out there somewhere" scenario forgets something. If forgets that THIS LIFE ISN'T ALL THERE IS; THIS IS A PREFACE SUPERIMPOSED over what "awaits." When I re-focus my confidence in that truth it makes dealing with today's obstacles, disappointments and painful losses a LOT more doable. It keeps me in what I presently know as today and re-fuels my motivation--power in my tank! It helps me actualize life today, right now, as a developmental exercise building muscles I need both for right now and tomorrow (Rom. 12:1,2; Phil. 2:5-8, 4:4-8, and 3:7-11; IPet. 1:3-8; Rev. 21:1-5).

So enough about me, how are you doing today?