from an article originally posted July 12, 2014...

There is an impossibility to our story that often seeps into the cracks of my going. There are thoughts that can destroy peace and steal the very best of a moment. This morning a little one came to me on the front porch, tear-stained for not getting her way. She knew I would not get her her way, but she knew something else—that maybe just time in my arms would lessen the hold that want had on her. She knew that quietly rocking next to my heart would soften her heart in a way nothing else could. I grabbed her up, held her close, and rocked and kissed the top of her head. We did not speak of the offending sibling or the things that didn’t go her way, we just rocked. My coffee hot beside me, my books on the ground, and the beautiful burned mountains on the horizon.

Then the suffocating thoughts enter into my heart in that pleasant moment. How is me not here going to be better? Who, but me, will know the quiet love of meeting a heart that just needs my arms? And in that moment my peace wanes. My hearts suffocates with thoughts focused on self and loss.

I then have to fight my way back to peace. The thought that says, I am here now. This moment I am present. This moment matters. Stop worrying over the next moment.

That is my daily battle. The battle to be completely present in today. Here. Grace today, not the fear of the absence in tomorrow. I feel that void, that loss deeply.

So, I rock my sweet loves, tears stream down my face, and I beg for the sweet grace to be present in that moment. I pray I would capture it in the sweetness that it holds without the suffocating fear of not having the future moments. Because in some way, this sweet moment will meet my child in the moment I’m not there. I can’t picture how—I’m too finite, but it will. Love never ends. I hold onto that. The beautiful truth do battle against the raging lies. Simple, simple words I repeat over and over: love never ends. Never. That means NEVER.

What quiet thoughts steal the best of life from you? How do you combat them with truth?