Grief

Sorrow is better than laughter, 

for sadness has a refining influence on us.

Ecclesiastes 7:3

I've been thinking a lot today.  Thinking about what it is I want out of this life I've been given and chastising myself for just floating through the days as if I have time to spare.  My days {our days} are numbered.  There is no room for waste.  No room to be someone I am not and do not want to be.  

I have to admit {and am ashamed to say} that I have done many things based on the convictions of others.   Not bad things, but not good things either...hurtful things, beautiful things, irrevocable things BUT things not of my own conviction.  Now I am left wondering what I have missed while looking through the lens of another person.  Only seeing what I've bee told to see.

Reclaiming my vision has given me new colors to marvel, new emotions to process, excitement {once mistaken as anxiety}, the ability to really see {for the first time} really see people and more questions than I ever knew fill my mind.  It has also left me more than a little sad for what I let go in the quest to be someone I am not.  

Knowing that some things cannot be salvaged, how does a woman move past what could have {should have} been to what IS?  I think I'll begin by grieving the loss of something truly beautiful, something I would do almost anything to reclaim if I could, and ask God to hold me tight while we work it through.  Hopefully, learning along the way how to trust God with the ashes of my grief and replace it with something much more beautiful than I know to desire.   

Even though I grieve, I know God is still who He says He is.  He never changes; He cannot be persuaded; He is never derailed.  His purposes always prevail, and I'm counting on that to be true.  

God's constancy is my peace tonight.