I missed my run this morning. My body laid in bed heavy with sleep and my bones ached from exhaustion. The past three days caught up with me and I knew it was better to get the extra two hours of sleep than to force myself up and out of bed to run four miles.
The funeral was devastatingly beautiful. Teens gathered in circles, stole glances over at Casey’s body exposed in the casket, shuddered and broke into tears. “Why?” you could hear their minds mutter in confusion, their eyes glazed over with disbelief. My heart ached for them traveling back twenty years to similar shattering moments when the cocoon of my innocence was chipped away forcing me to face the cycle of life.
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Fr. Borski read from this passage in Ecclesiastes during his homily. He acknowledged that there are moments that we don’t understand why and why God and it is in these moments we need to embrace the truth of the season – there is a time for everything and everyone.
This afternoon I had the great privilege of working with a survivor who found me through a family member. This young woman, in her twenties, had lived through what I’d consider a substantial amount of ‘hell’ in her life, beginning with the abandonment of her mother. Now this survivor is a mother and as we spoke on the phone her little ones were asking for snacks, wanting to go outside, spilling juice, etc. etc. and I listened as she firmly but lovingly reprimanded when needed, affirmed at the right times and simply loved.
Her journey is not over nor is her life now wrapped in a pretty little bow with all the suffering behind her but she recognizes her time for second chances and she is moving forward with grace as her courage.
I finished my work day on the phone with Greg Hennis of LIFT RADIO (Lift985.com) a Christian radio station in the New Jersey area. I knew I had the radio interview but I didn’t know what the name or theme of the program – Second Chances. I smiled as he introduced the program and delighted in The Lord and His little ways of ‘showing up’.
Not always does it seem we get second chances because they don’t always present themselves as direct ‘do-overs’ but more often than not our ‘second chance’ will look nothing like the first because we are not meant to go back or stay stagnant, rather we are to move forward.
Embrace this time, this season of your life whether it is a brief moment of struggle and ‘war’ or a time of joy in reaping a harvest of blessings – move forward taking every chance you get.
Blessings
Shannon