The Past is the Past

I think it’s interesting that the human equation is somewhat an unstable creature trying to find stability in a world that can become, in a lighthouse-flash of a second, unstable. Like standing the deck of a rolling ship, you always have to shift and anticipate the next move and be ready to brace and stand as the ship goes through the motions of the ever moving, ever changing seas.

Yea life can be like that.

In truth, I would suspect that those of us who find too much stability could find it a bit of boring if everyday life becomes so predictable that there wasn’t room or space for change. Our universe is ever expanding, ever-changing. Just like we look outward to see that dark, massive void filled with diamond gems stones of light, we can look inward and see the same kind of changes taking place in normal healthy ever-changing life.

I always try to look at the lessons God places before me and do my best to learn from them. Strangely but not shockingly, I believe deep down in the roots of my DNA and emotions that God will use ANYTHING in our lives to teach us about greater love. I dig into that one because of all of the lessons I think we learn from God through Christ, is that great love, His love is worth everything on this little blue speck that floats in the vast darkness of the universe. I also think that love is the defining hinge point. I don’t need to understand evil, I just need to pursue love.

That love is actually the light.

As the scriptures say, it’s the ‘light of the world’.

I have never had a 16-year-old before. My first born, blew away like a misty vapor on the morning dew, at an early age but my second born, a son, who is the apple of my eye, is working his way through the testosterone based years and it’s… a real journey.

When he was young and I was going through a divorce, I pulled ALL of the strings I could to create a ‘stable’ reality out of instability. In fact, I knew, by the time I pulled the trigger on the divorce, that I was going to up-end our world, which would get worse at first but ultimately create a chance at a better world. I am a chess player in life. Long, slow moves with a long game in mind. Sometimes that ‘game’ is based on what my heart is telling me and not what a ‘book’ or something concrete tells me.

Well navigating these teens years is just that. The little boy that ‘needed’ dad, the little boy that cured up in under my arm to watch ‘Thomas the Tank, Theodore The Tugboat or the old TV version of the A-Team is mostly gone. Not dead of course, just now one of the smaller building blocks that teach him I love him and more importantly, God loves him. Those years of ‘investment’ has put roots into his own DNA about who he is and who his father is. The first 16 years of inculcation is wrapping up. The formative years of being able to pull, down to the granular details, all of the strings to create the world I wanted to model for him is passing on. Instead of pulling the strings like a puppeteer to create specific things in life, we are moving toward ‘influencing’ and ‘maintaining the standards’ I hold true for myself, and I pray for him.

This process of letting go and watching the seeds that have been planted, as any parent will tell you, is somewhat painful. You see, from the outside, some of the ‘weeds’ mixed in with the flowers and you realize…

“Uh…I did that didn’t I?”

Then there is the whole, “Where did that plant come from? I didn’t put those seeds in!”

Yea, that one is a tough one also. The world has gotten bigger than Thomas the Tank or the A-Team. Life doesn’t resolve itself in a 20 or 40-minute sitcom where ‘ultimate’ disaster is faced and resolved… with a smile.

This is life, and brothers and sisters, it’s different.

This part of ‘change’ isn’t something I was prepared for. I am not needed in the same way and in truth, it’s age appropriate but how it reminds me of maybe, just a tiny bit, of what our Heavenly Father felt as his first Adam and Eve, walked away from the perfect world their Father created.

Yea…

As I and all of us face the changing tides of life it seems that instead of pushing back against the changing seas and seasons, finding a way to ‘embrace’ the change is more productive. Finding a way to make the change part of who we are and marking the growth that comes from change is way more in line with our creator methods.

As we all face the changes in front of us, could a good way to handle this be illustrated in how we must parent? There is a reality that love can be demonstrated in doing our best to teach in the formative years and then let go and let grow the lessons you’ve invested in? Sorta reminds me of the Story of two individuals that started it all doesn’t it?

Peace on your Journey this week.