MichelleBentham
This morning I awoke to messages from friends on my phone. A couple of hours of work on my agenda and then lunch with friends again, new and old. I am reminded today that my life is not about me – My Life is not my own.
My closest friends and I call ourselves “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” after the series of books and movies that became iconic a few years ago – though we do not regularly exchange pants – we do regularly travel together. That thought really makes me laugh out loud. I would not have imagined this life I’m living today five years ago.
It all began with me about two or three years ago. This realization that there is more to life – more to friendship even – than just getting by, occasionally saying hi to one another in the halls at church and so much more to my walk with God than focusing on myself. There is much more to be made of the time of my days.
Three years ago Scott and I were moving out of our home. Foreclosure. Trying to figure out how to make our lives work in bankruptcy bringing home what seemed like less money than we had on his paychecks than when we first married 18 years ago. Today, we have about 18 months left in that bankruptcy – that feels like light at the end of the tunnel. We live in a borrowed home, also known as a rental, out by the lake in Granbury, Texas. I work part time in a church again. I have a part time job with a para-church ministry, and I still find time to paint and write. Scott still works in the same places doing the same things he’s done for the last 18 1/2 years just under a new company name. We’ve survived transition, devastation and the stretching of God that seems to be a daily consideration for us. Life is exceedingly good.
In the last week we have continually spent time with friends or my parents, who live nearby, over meals sharing our lives and our thoughts about life with one another. On this day, I know God is good. People are people and I love them.
Friends are like treasure – they bring life to dead places, laughter to sorrowful situations. They rally and they reach. They pray. I’m grateful to have friends who receive all of me and grateful to know friends who love well. Today the strongest word I have in my vocabulary for life is Grateful.
Grateful for difficult seasons. Grateful for pruning seasons. Grateful for friends and life that I never would have lived if my plans had not failed and bankruptcy had not ensued. Grateful for parents who love us well. Grateful for a God who is always working for our good an His glory. Grateful for rainbows in gray-blue skies on the way home from work. Grateful for water in the lake and sun in the sky. Grateful.
This is a good life I live. A blessed life. It took me 46 years to find and see it. Thank you Lord that this is the day you made – I am rejoicing Father! Rejoicing and being glad in it.
