Did you ever have one of those moments when you had a reaction to something that seemed perhaps a tad too… well, personal?  Something someone says or does triggers you in such a way that you can’t help yourself.  Words come out of your mouth like bullets, with a velocity of emotion you can’t help but have to apologize for afterwards.

Such a thing happened to me the other day.

Friends of mine, in their second decade of marriage, were so casually marking their wedding anniversary — bickering even — that when the comment, “It’s no big deal,” was spouted, I got riled.  “It’s not, until you don’t have them to celebrate anymore.”  It was raw, knee jerk, from the gut —and true.

How much we take for granted in this life.

I’ve heard it said, “What you are complaining about, someone else is praying for.” 

There are so many things we wish we could “do over.”  We gain wisdom as we grow, as we age, as we see the consequences of how not tending to the little things, manifests into much bigger things later.  Things, that if we had taken the time to address early, could have avoided hurt and heartache.

“A stitch in time saves nine.”

The truth is, there is so much that is a big deal, yet we are so numb, so distracted, that we put off doing anything about them.  And before you know it, it’s too late.

I think about this a lot when I skip over my prayers, when I mention them as if in passing to God, not really connecting my spirit with my words.  I dutifully rattle my list to Him, as if I were ordering a cheeseburger.  “Medium rare, no pickles, onions, or tomato, please.”  How casually we take bringing our petitions to God as if we are going through a drive thru and not laying our deepest yearnings before the King.

What is the secret?  How do we learn to observe what we have as blessings, even when we don’t feel that they are?  How do we climb out of the weeds inside our heads that have us mired in our self pity, our idyllic standards of what should be, and not seeing what is as already good?

It’s like when we are kids and we wish to be older… Until we are older and wish we could be kids. 

I think that God wants us to notice Him in everything.  He’s always trying to tell us something.  He wants for us to know that all we have is now, this moment, this opportunity to be gracious and kind and appreciative for what is in our hands and who is sitting around our tables.  When we include Him, we see Him in each other. 

Celebrate your milestones. Take stock in knowing there is no such thing as perfection.  Happiness comes only when we stop noticing the blemishes, the “bug me’s,” the incidentals that way too easily cause us to brood and blame. We need to stop thinking our better life is out there somewhere.  Our best life starts here. 

Life is certainly not always easy.  We don’t always get everything right.  We make mistakes. We lose things and people and misjudge more often than we probably should.

But, thankfully, God is always there to pick us up and dust us off.  He gives us Grace so that we can give it to others.  He works on us from the inside out, realigning our vision so that we can see Him more clearly and in turn, we can see others the same way. 

Love each other.  Pray deeply. Be thankful for each day and each new opportunity to do better, to complain less, to appreciate more.

Embrace what and who is before you before it’s too late.  Time does not stand still.

The secret to all things, is love.