Ready or Not.

I’m exhausted. 

I don’t know if it was the 8 hour drive to Texas, the 12 hour drive to Missouri, the 13 hour drive back to New Mexico within a span of two weeks… or maybe it was the plethora of after-midnight bedtimes, or the endless amounts of energy of the six 4 and under nieces and nephews, or the fruitful attempts to get my 10,000 steps in each day (all the while gorging myself on Christmas goodies, of course). Or maybe it’s simply because we started our journey today at 4:00 a.m. 

But, I’m tired. 

Aren’t you? 

It’s a new year, filled with reminders about the need to make resolutions: LOSE WEIGHT, SAVE MONEY, BUY NOW, DO THIS AND IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE ONE MILLION TIMES BETTER!!!!! The reminders have turned into demands, necessities: make this year about you (I swear I heard that on the radio at some point today). Political debates, religious turmoil, too many opinions that often seem to cause more harm than do much good. 

I haven’t begun to make sense of any of it yet. I probably never will. 

But I do know that I will most likely wake up tomorrow. And, if the Lord does decides to grant me another day here on earth, I shall brush my teeth, splash my face, consider trying to hide my tired eyes until I remember that I ran out of make-up, put on clothes that are, once again, too small, and walk to my office. As I walk, I’ll talk to my husband and confess that I’m not ready to return. Not ready to answer the question about how my Christmas was. Not ready to engage. 

The thing about not being ready is that it usually doesn’t matter. Life doesn’t operate on my timeline. I don’t get to choose when things happen and when they don’t. Life just happens. People die too soon. People leave when you don’t want them to. People get sick. Other people get the very thing that you wanted. People, I think, don’t often feel very ready. When it’s show time, it’s show time- you don’t get to delay opening night just because you aren’t ready. The show must go on. 

We live every day we get the opportunity to live, and we get to choose how we live it… ready or not.

It’s like a jack-in-the-box… it’s slowly winding up and I’m cringing, waiting in dreadful anticipation for that scary clown to pop up. It’s inevitable. It’s coming. I can’t stop it, no matter what. 

While I may be exhausted and while I may not feel ready, I know that at the end of the day, I want to do things that matter. I still want to love well. I still want to be teachable, moldable, growable. I want to push through the weariness and live a life that is full. I want to say YES to opportunities, I want to see all people as people and treat them as such. 

I don’t get to choose when I’m ready or not, but I get to choose how I respond to things, even when I’m not ready. I want to respond to the creepy jack-in-the-box NOT out of fear, angst, or worry. I get to choose joy. Love. Life. While I’m typically far better at choosing things that revolve around me and my selfishness, there’s continually this grace that’s extended to me. A grace I don’t deserve that reminds me of the better. A grace that reminds me to choose life, joy, love. A grace that reminds me to live out of the fullness of the gift of Christ that we all just celebrated. 

I once told you all that I felt very okay about not having gotten pregnant yet… but that the real fear was when/if we were ever told we could not get pregnant. Tomorrow we have a doctor’s appointment that will give us some results and perhaps even some answers (or else lead us on a quest of asking more questions and seeking more answers). I don’t fully know what my expectations even are, and there are still large parts of me that wonder if I should ever be a mom… but I do know that somewhere in me there is a desire for children. Desire. Fears. Unknowns. 

Ready or not. 

I get to choose my response, despite the outcome. 

This isn’t a year where I’m making resolutions because it’s a new year. It’s a year where I’m asking that the Lord would remind me to constantly choose Him, despite what’s going on around me… despite how I feel. To choose Him and the fullness of who He is. To seek Him more and to allow who He is to refine me until there’s a greater reflection of something good starting back at me. Not because of anything I have done, but because of everything He’s done and continues to do for me on a daily basis. Even when I forget. Even when I’m not ready. 

Tomorrow is coming…and everything that tomorrow entails. 

Ready or not.