By Noeline Maldonado (2022)
And so it happens that some mornings aren’t welcome. You open your eyes, stare at the ceiling, yawn, sigh, and feel yesterday’s heaviness descending upon you like a dark, wet cloak. Between your need to stretch, crack your neck, and pull yourself out of bed, sadness is wrapping itself around you before you can even pop a pod in the Keurig.
Lost in a distant stare into nowhere, you are mustering the strength to go on.
Pointless. That is what today is feeling like.
What is the point of participating in the inconsequential minutia of life when your head and heart ache with despair? What is the point of shuffling through this day when the forecast for hope is “cloudy with a chance of misery”? Why does nothing change? Some mental/emotional pain is both visceral and palpable. You can feel it in your gut, and you can even sense the physical illness that is germinating from your unease. And in this moment, you are tempted to plant hopelessness into your ailing garden as you settle on, ‘well, this is life’.
Acceptance now pushes against your path to resilience. But right now, you are being nudged to “remember to remember,” because so much remains forgotten in this instance.
But do you remember?
Do you remember the things that inspire you to smile? Do you remember that you have spoken healing words from lips that frown now? Do you remember that you have painted masterpieces of joy over the canvases of sadness many times before? Do you remember that your hands have created beauty? That your genes have multiplied sunshine into the earth?
If you have forgotten to remember, then fight to remember.
Remember that the love that has choked you with emotion for another, is the same love that created you. Remember that the present truly is a gift we shouldn’t squander, or we will look back with weary eyes and gray hair at the opportunities for hope and joy we misspent.
And as you are remembering the many breezes that filled your lungs with dreams, yearnings, and expectations, also remember that the winds never cease. As you are scaling the walls of forgetfulness, remember that you can live today.
Truly live.
You can embrace the songs of the Hummingbirds and let them guide you out of yourself and into God’s vast, open, lush, and fruited fields of expectancy. When you can’t change your present, let the splendor of your past remind you that good has happened and good can still happen in the future.
Today hasn’t started out well. I get it. But don’t forget to remember.
Psalm 77:11-14 – Remember His Deeds
I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds. Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.
FAITH & SHADOWS 