“To really enjoy life—to break in the comfortable chair and relish it, to take the plastic off the lampshades, to brew the new coffee, to eat the exotic chocolate….this is to live life…not to save it for later, but to taste it now.”

-Amy Fitzwater

Life isn’t to be planned out, it’s to be LIVED out. The only thing we can have any control over is how much we enjoy and make the most of in our life right NOW. Not when the degree is done, the next phase entered, the thing we want so badly ours – this is how time is wasted. We must work toward the things our hearts desire, but still hold on to the beauty of now. BE in the now. Utilize the present.

I’ve come to realize this truth…come to know it in my spirit after a matter of weeks of going back and forth, trying to decide about whether to continue my degree, or to follow after my dreams of writing, doing something with my photography, learning to make pottery, etc, etc…and as I’ve wondered why I haven’t received that CLEAR undeniable answer from God…within my spirit, I think He’s whispering something that seems to be a redundant theme He speaks into my life…BE.

If we continue to look at the next phase, we will never enjoy the phase we are in and we will live a life constantly looking forward or backward, rather than around us.  This is such a waste of time and it’s so easy to miss something great when we aren’t looking.

I don’t know God’s specific plan for me, but I do know that I’m here now, in the middle of a masters degree in counseling, all the while feeling the tug of my heart to write…to create…to be ALIVE.  So maybe it’s the small little steps, the moments like this one when I stop in my schedule and write what is bubbling in my heart.  Maybe it’s the day, evening, or a few hours here and there that I start working on organizing some of my photography to take to be ready to have a booth at festivals.  Maybe it’s taking that pottery class amidst everything else.

We try too hard to control our lives, to plan them out, to decide when the best timing is for everything.  Funny thing is, we have no earthly idea when the best timing is for anything, not really.  We can only live close to our God, realizing that what He wants more than anything is for us to know Him, and as we do this, following the desires of a heart given over to Him, all these other things shall be added unto us.  It’s beautiful.  This is what I’ve come to, the conclusion I’ve made.  Nothing tangible or concrete really, just this.  But I believe it’s powerful.

Amy Fitzwater
___________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to my beautiful wife for this wonderful post.  Tune in on Saturdays from now on to hear my wife’s inspirational comments, “Tidbits of Pondering”.  She’s an aspiring writer and a wonderfully creative one at that.  Enjoy!

God bless,

Travis