“catching up”

Day 135

Today I talked to my friend Amrah, who has just returned to southern California after a year in South Korea. We haven’t talked to each other that whole time. Funny how it is with people you haven’t talked to in a long while.  There is so much to say but you don’t know where to begin. Suddenly the present overwhelms and all you can think about is something mundane like “I’m having macaroni and cheese for lunch.” 8 months ago, 2 months ago, last week – what happened back then? How do you squeeze all that living into a conversation? I feel so tongue-tied. Eventually stories come to mind, but there is a big empty space where you lived your life and they lived their life and you just can’t go and relive that part together. You really can’t “catch up”. 

That’s why I love my mom’s weekly emails from Kenya. She often writes about the details – Daniel’s practicing his trombone, Emily’s running out the door to a meeting, Noah’s washing the dishes and listening to his music really loud. Somehowly, those things bring me into my family’s life, they “catch me up” just a little, make me feel a part of their ordinary. I like that.

Onward.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

That’s our memory verse at church this month. I have a future, I have a hope (here I use that word to express a “confident expectation”, not a “wish” as it is often used today). Thanks to God, I know who I am, where I came from, why I am here, and where I’m going. That’s pretty awesome.