Don’t Miss Your Moment!

“Don’t miss your moment!”

As an intense teenager that mandate ran over and over in my brain like the Cliff notes of my very own ‘Ground Hog Day’ movie script. I’m sure the words of a visiting evangelist were meant to be encouraging to an apparently lethargic group of Scottish sixteen- year olds. The heart of his message was that there would be a moment when God would reach down into the ordinary stuff of life and reveal what we were made for, a call, a mission. But to me the possibilities were terrifying.

“What if I was in the bathroom when my moment came and I missed it?”

“What if I slept through my moment through no fault of my own other than the fact that my sister snores and I am perpetually tired?”

“What if my moment came and I just didn’t recognize it?”

Well, time became my friend and taught me that God is more invested in ‘me’ than in ‘moments’. But as I leaf through the final pages of this decade I am revisiting my understanding of the ‘moments’ of life.

For many years I lived in past moments. I looked at how tragedy or pain or poor choices had affected where I found myself. I wondered how differently my life would look if I hadn’t lost my father or if I had found a voice in my thirties to say, no! to what others perceived my path should look like. In time I stopped that ridiculous and futile questioning. I began to embrace the goodness and mercy of God in all that had brought me to the place where I stood.

Recently however I have found myself caught in a fresh trap, the ‘what might be’ moments. As I look to 2010 I see another very busy year. I am excited about many things professionally and personally. I love my life. I am grateful for the gift of being able to give myself to the things that make me feel alive and in tune with God’s heart. But like every human being who has been banished to live outside of Eden there are pieces of my life with very rough edges that cut me when I try to fix them. So I look ahead. I try to figure out what I could do to change them.

I didn’t realize however until it snowed this Christmas Eve how I am in danger of missing ‘now’ waiting for ‘then’. It never snows in Dallas on Christmas Eve but it did this year. I stood outside with my face turned to the snow and in my heart I heard God speak to me.

“I am here, I am now, I am all you have ever needed.”

So I say to you and to me, don’t miss your moment. Don’t miss this moment. Christ is here in this and every moment. God has come to us.

~ by SHEILA WALSH on December 28, 2009.