You’ve done this if you have Facebook. You get the notification “you have memories”. Some days it can be a long scrolling memory lane and other times just a few. This morning was my youngest singing, That Would Be Enough from Hamilton. Some days we scroll and move on, and other days we are filled with a rush of emotions. As Valentina shared the words, “Look around, look around”, I found my soul reaching in my mind for memories, and as a I looked around, I was surprised by the years and the joy. They say your life can flash before your eyes. Those flashes take pain and fear and create a masterpiece of what really is going on–life. To live is to love and be loved. It is also to stumble, to fail, and to grow in your faith. The growth only takes place through the living out.

I wrote this on Tuesday, early in the morning. I’ve come back to writing on Wednesday at 5:15. I reviewed the previous paragraph and pondered my current mindset. Life is such a journey of happenings, events, and conversations that allow you to practice perspective taking, joy, and grace.

Look around, look around…

What can you be thankful for and choose joy? I try not to embrace toxic positivity, but a mindfulness way of life and the practice of being intentional. And, sometimes that intention includes tears.

And, that is okay…

“Grant us courage to shrink neither from the aches nor from the joys that love brings, for each, willingly received, will accomplish the good works you have appointed them to do. Therefore we praise you even for our sadness, knowing that the sorrows we steward in this life will in time be redeemed.” (McKelvey, Every Moment Holy, Volume 1, p. 217)