Lost Sleep

Can I tell you one of the things that keeps me up at night?

It's embarrassing, it's often prompted by Facebook, it's prominent when I'm overtired, and it's real:

I'm worried that I'm not going to matter.  

That I will live my life and dream my dreams and have grand visions, and at the end of the day . . . I'm only going to have done very normal things.

And there is this imaginary crowd in my head that is going to say,

"She had so much potential, but . . ."

"If only she'd made that decision differently, then . . . "

"I always knew she'd never do it . . ."

When I am less tired, less comparison-oriented, less focused on me, I realize that this "crowd" is bent on making me the unhappiest person on the planet.  Because all those voices that tell me that I'm not going to matter . . . what do they know?

What if my limits are like guardrails from God . . . directing me into the path of grace, pointing me toward my purpose?

This past year has been one of the most challenging of my life.  I had two babies under two at the start of it.  My work had seen better days.  My thank yous were six months behind, at least.  I'm not going to list the rest of the issues.  Suffice to say, it hasn't been pretty.

This past year has also been one of the most beautiful of my life.  People have been phenomenally good to me.  Unsolicited grace has decorated my days.  Effort, my lifelong idol, has been replaced by something far superior.

And I have these two amazing little boys and their devoted father reminding me day in and day out of gifts, blessings, love.

And it is all so normal.  So blessedly normal.

What if significance isn't so much what we do but how we perceive? Experience?  Share?  Accompany?  Acknowledge?

Witness?

What I have witnessed this year has been extraordinary.

Significant.

Divine.

Normal.

Thank you, all of you, who have blessed me with eyes to see.