This Gift

The sun was just peeking up over the horizon on a beautiful May morning when I made my debut.  Air flooded my lungs, and I was given a gift.  

Life. 

I am convicted this morning of my intense longing for heaven.  I certainly don’t believe that it is wrong to long for heaven.  In many ways, it is so very right.  Yet, there is a reason why God created this earth and why He gave us bodies of flesh and blood.  There is a reason for this smattering of years that we exist on this planet.  Despite the effects of the fall, I think maybe that God has something for us to experience here and now, in this lifetime.  Instead of a curse, maybe this life is a gift.  

Though it is a cocoon, and though I long for the rebirth of heaven, maybe this earth-bound cocoon houses its own joys.  How do I make the most of this stage?  How can I live with the awareness of the gift of breath and blood flow? 

Brother Lawrence understood something that few of us grasp. God is in the dishes. God is in the scrubbing floors.  God is in the production line.  God is in the changing of diapers. God is in the steaming of milk and dropping of shots.  God is in the smiles and the holding of doors for strangers. God is in the changing of lanes on the commute.  

These little gifts. 

This big gift of life.  

Let me not lose sight of the truth of who you are today, oh God, in the “mundane.” Help me get my head out of the clouds long enough to see a little more clearly that You have been HERE all along.  You aren’t just out there, in the vast beyond of eternity.  You are here in Wichita today in 2014, and you are there, in the New Jerusalem descending when time collides with timelessness.  

Let me not use my longing for heaven as an excuse not to engage in today.  I am privileged with this life.  Help me to live it fully and gratefully.