If this is now

So be it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the job God has called me to complete. The race I’ve been signed up to run. The life I am blessed/burdened/beckoned to live.

Jude writes to the church, “To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you” (1).

I’ve been called. I am beloved. I am kept.

I’ve been called. I am beloved. I am kept.

I haven’t always believed there was a purpose for me here. I lost a lot of battles against depression, waving the white flag of surrender. The battles began seemingly simple enough, revolving around a small lie. With enough time, though, the lie would grow into a knotty, gnarled root that choked the life from any other living thing. Eventually only the root fed and grew.

Eric was always attentive to this. He would weed out these roots and weeds, bring life back to what hope had suffered. He always reminded me the purpose for which I’d been created. Even if he didn’t use the name of Jesus, he always acknowledged the more of my life.

And then he died.

And a horrible, beautiful, impossible thing happened.

I kept living.

I’m still living.

I parent my kids. I work my job. I tend my house. Feed your horses, my mom will say. Days come and days go, and I keep living. There are moments it overwhelms me, the question of how much longer must I last? They grow farther and fewer in between, though. And it’s not that the burden has become lighter, either. If anything I’m more aware than ever of just how heavy this burden is. (Parenting in general is hard. Parenting with the hopes of raising decent human beings–unfathomable.) It’s me that has become stronger.

So if this is the life I’ve been called to and I am beloved by the One who does the calling, and He is keeping me for Jesus Christ…then what now?

I have gotten into my bed the last few nights with the resounding sense of affirmation that, if this is now the life I am beckoned to do, then so be it, Lord. Let me do this life then, with all the energy I have (as little as it is) to bring the glory to Your name. Let me do this life.