Here and Now.

How would I know the sunrise, if I knew not midnight?

I just finished listening to a song that is currently one of my favorites, Sunrise, by Nichole Nordeman. To me, it's a powerful song speaking to the point of struggles, pain, heartbreak, "valleys". . . all those things that we use to describe the difficulties in life. It seems we are always looking on the other side of the fence, wishing we were somewhere else, wondering why we have to experience this, now? I certainly find myself asking that, and I'm not even out in "real life" yet.

We need to learn to live in the here and now. Not obsessively so, but sometimes we (especially my peers and I) get so focused on tomorrow, next week, next year, that we forget to watch how God is working right now, we forget to learn what He is teaching right now. Too often we rush through today to get to tomorrow, because either we hate the realities of today or long for the dreams of tomorrow. Living fully today does not mean that we resign to the thought that tomorrow will be exactly like today and nothing will ever change. It just means accepting today, for now, serving the most through it and gaining the most wisdom, strength, grace and patience from it.

Sometimes this also means living with the questions of today without needing to know the answers. A friend shared a quote with me about this from Rainer Maria Rilke:

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in
your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like
books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They
cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of
experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you
will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer,
some distant day."

Who knows, maybe today is meant to make tomorrow even more beautiful? Maybe midnight today will make tomorrow's sunrise even more breath-taking. . .


I certainly hope so! : )