This Is What It Feels Like

(Dedicated in loving memory to one of my greatest spiritual mentors, Mrs. Chittenden. She is rejoicing as a new member of the "Great Cloud of Witnesses" club in heaven and cheering us on to our own finish lines!)

Last night my husband and I watched a football game together. Typically the plays happen so fast that I can’t wrap my mind around what’s happening until the scenario is played back in slow motion. 

In slow motion, everything makes perfect sense.

Sometimes real life also unfolds faster than we can comprehend.

In both the good times and the tough times, life allows us to learn first hand what it feels like to live in a moment. The football player lying on the field holding his injured knee is living fully in a moment.

Watching athletes perform to their highest potentials is a thrill BECAUSE of the risk involved. At any moment, something could go right and at any moment something could go wrong. We watch as spectators for a lot of different reasons; but whatever our reasons, we remain safe on the sidelines.

Instead of wondering what it feels like to race full throttle down the field, the basketball court or the track, we safely watch with racing hearts as others live in the space of feeling every moment of an experience.  One day the question, “I wonder what it feels like?” is replaced with drive and tenacity to do whatever it takes to discover for ourselves what living fully in the moment of something amazing feels like. We discover that risk is something to be embraced and not feared.

I love sports and the dedication of athletes, but living fully in each moment that life presents can overflow into every area of our own lives regardless our athleticism or the lack thereof. Wonder what it feels like to be happily married? Serve your spouse with the endurance of an athlete—especially when no one is watching—and see what happens. Wonder what it feels like to teach a child to see past himself or herself? Become the parent who practices selfless acts of love to those people whom you encounter in your daily life.

I lived fully and simultaneously in both a sad and a wonderful moment this week when I attended a funeral for a woman who deeply impacted the lives of dozens of people. Coincidentally the lady we honored didn’t have an athletic bone in her body. Instead, she dared greatly each day, giving her life to teaching and to selflessly pouring the love of God into every student she taught for over 30 years. 

It was evident to everyone who knew her that at some point in her life she had experienced a deep encounter with God, after which time she understood her life’s purpose was to teach others about the love and kindness of God.  She was never in the spotlight, nor did she seek to be. However, in her tireless endeavor to be the voice, hands, heart and humble teacher like her Savior, not one student was missed under her watch. She was available 100% of the time for this writer. I am greatly humbled to have been mentored by such a selfless person and to have been the recipient of her patient prayers, love and kindness. 

I am learning that in the absence of mentors, teachers, parents and persons of influence, we must dare to take the initiatives to step up to the plates, grab ahold of the batons being passed down to us— and willingly share with others what has been freely given to us.

If given the gift to to watch our lives play back in slow motion, wouldn’t it be wonderful to see that in every encounter, in every circumstance, in every God-given talent and in every life we touch, all honor and glory points others to our Creator? 

In slow motion, everything makes perfect sense.

Stay the Course…

Sheila