Going nowhere fast

I visited my sister in northern Illinois, and it didn't take me long to remember what driving in the city was like. The children and I were taking a leisurely pace, looking here and there.

The people behind us were not interested in anything except getting around us. One after another, they whipped around us, hurrying, it seemed, to merely beat us to the next stop light.

They were working so hard at getting nowhere.

Later I tried to make a left-hand turn out of the grocery store parking lot and cross four lanes of traffic. I couldn't. While I waited, drivers behind me honked their horns, impatient with my patience.

So, instead of going left (the direction I wanted to go), I had to turn right and drive in the wrong direction until I found another stop light where I could turn left, find another parking lot, turn around and head back to the light. Only then could I finally go the direction I wanted to go.

We laughed about how much time we wasted going the wrong way . . . and how long it took us to get right back where we started.

Another life lesson--it's hard to cross traffic.

It's hard to be an individual and ignore the honking from behind while you wait for your moment to cross. It's easier to give up all together and go the other way, the wrong way. Only trouble is, some of us never turn around. Years slip into the next and you're still heading in the wrong direction.

If you ever hope to get to where you really want to be, ignore the well-intentioned "honks" of your friends and family who try to tell you what you should or shouldn't do or how you should or shouldn't feel. Only you know the direction you want to go, and only you know when it's safe to cross.

When the moment's just right, floor it. Don't think . . . you've thought long enough. Don't worry . . . you know the way is clear. Don't give up . . . it's worth the effort.

Go the direction you were born to go.

photo credit: Picture Perfect Photography

In search of one moment in time

 

 Photo by Wil Bingman 

"At what point will I be content?" my dearest friend asked.

We talked about dreams and plans and fate and dumb luck, all the while wondering when each of us would be able to say, "This is where I want to be."

Maybe we're reaching for something we'll never achieve. Maybe we're never meant to be totally content. Maybe it's that unsettled feeling which keeps us striving each day; maybe that's what makes us get out of bed each morning and do it all one more time, a little better than the day before.

Maybe.
Or, maybe, contentment comes from making the most of where we are that day. Maybe that peace we're looking for is what we feel each night before we drift to sleep when we realize we lived the day the best we could. It may not have been great, may not have even been good, but it was our best effort.

Maybe.
Or, maybe, if we're lucky, there will be a point where everything lines up; where good is good and always good and always right there at your side.

I hope.
A firefighter from the Champaign, IL area spoke at a state 4-H awards ceremony and he said it much better than I ever could. "We are all moving toward that one moment in time where you're more than you thought you could ever be."

That's what I want. I want to be more than I ever thought I could be, and, more importantly, recognize the moment when I get there.

I want more contentment than I ever thought I would have.
I want to love more than I ever thought I could and be loved more than I ever dreamed possible.
I want more laughter than tears.
I want comfort without extravagance.
I want more friendships than one lifetime can fill.

In "The Bridges of Madison County," Clint Eastwood turned to the woman he loved and said, "It just seems like everything I've done up to this point in my life has led me here." That was his "one moment."

I wait for that one moment in time when I say "here is where I wanted to be; here is where I was meant to be; here is where I feel content; here is the place where all the twists of my life have taken me . . .  and it is a good place to be."

Be who you were born to be

When Ozzie Smith learned he had been chosen for the Baseball Hall of Fame, a TV reporter asked him why he had decided to play baseball. His reply was simple: "I played because it's what I was put here to do."

Oprah Winfrey said this: "That whisper you keep hearing is the universe trying to get your attention . . . When you're true to who you are and what your spirit is telling you to do, that truth will indeed set you free. . . . Wherever I'm faced with a difficult decision, I ask myself: What would I do if I weren't afraid of making a mistake, feeling rejected, looking foolish or being alone? Remove the fear, and the answer comes into focus."

I believe we spend a good part of our life running from what life asks of us (just as we spend a good part of our life running from what God asks of us). We're afraid saying "yes" means saying "no" to so many other things we've grown accustomed to. But peace, I believe, can only come when we're true to the life we were meant to live.

Martha Beck, in her book "Finding Your Own North Star," said, "Your body is free but your heart is in prison. To release your heart, you simply reverse the process which locked it up. First you begin to listen for messages from your heart--messages you may have been ignoring since childhood. Next you must take the daring, risky step of expressing your heart in the outside world. ... As you learn to live by heart, every choice you make will become way of telling your story. ... It is the way you were meant to exist. If you stop to listen, you'll realize that your heart has been telling you so all along."

A gift acknowledged

Ten years ago April 9 at 11 p.m., my mother called and said, "Brenda (my sister) has had a heart attack and she's going to die.

"You're the closest one to Kentucky, so you need to get there before she dies."

You don't forget calls like that. In shock I drove to Bowling Green, asking the toll booth attendant for directions to the hospital. Little did I know that one shock would lead to another for years to come. Brenda didn't die then, and for ten years, she fought a brave fight.

She was in and out of the hospital her last year, many times very critical, but each time she fought back. She had been approved as a heart transplant candidate, but the latest heart episode had taken its toll on my 56-year-old sister. She struggled to awake from the sedation, to breathe on her own, and regain her strength to stand, all pre-requisites for the transplant.

That Saturday found her finally coherent, trying to communicate with sign language, and for a moment, there was hope.

That Sunday, something went terribly wrong, resulting in her brain death.

I drove the six hours to Chicago to say goodbye before they shut off the machines which were keeping her heart beating and lungs breathing. We had learned so much on this journey of Brenda's illness, but our greatest lesson was yet to come.

Since she had no children,m her husband relied on "the sisters" to guide him. A representative of the "Life Goes On" organ donation organization quietly asked us if we knew if Brenda had ever spoken of being an organ donor. I had never asked her, and she had never said. The decision, it seemed, was up to us, but how could we decide something so important without knowing for sure. Finally, we agreed that since we had been willing to get someone else's heart to keep Brenda alive, it seemed only fair that we be willing to share what Brenda no longer needed to keep someone else alive. Yes, we would donate Brenda's organs, but little did we know what that would require of us. .... There's so much more to this story, and I hope you'll click over to read it all at A Sister's Love.

The real point of today's blog is this (I know; took me long enough to get there): we received a letter from the young woman who received one of Brenda's kidneys, and she is living life with new hope, thanks to Brenda's final gift. She spoke of her renewed strength, and, I wrote back about the woman who gave her that second life. I closed with this: "We wish you only happiness and health in the future. I hope your family treasures you as much as Brenda's treasured her. If so, you'll have all the love you'll ever need."

If you'd like to give the gift of life, make your intentions known at www.LifeGoesOn.com. Don't leave that decision to your sisters!