Being Present

Being present is the greatest gift.

Cosmic Puns

I love language, the way it can cause things to happen, how it moves people emotionally, what it represents, and it’s multitude of affects.

Life is very short. The Scriptures say our lives are like a vapor. We are here today and gone tomorrow. For people who have suffered the core violation of child sexual abuse or adverse childhood experiences, the impact on our brains can make it challenging to think on purpose. When we try to dwell in the past or in the future, our minds are absent from the room and we are alone in that. Unless we are retelling a story, but then we engage with those who are with us.

It is so cool that the sun rises everyday. The most obvious cosmic pun is that the Son rises everyday. He is alive eternally. He came to earth as a babe, as we celebrate at Christmas. While He lived here and taught the church leaders at 12 years old, which is enormously rich in symbolism, and began ministering at 30. By 33 years old, He was crucified. He had performed so many miracles while He was present with us, that John said it would fill many books. His entire reason for coming to earth was to extend the gift of salvation to us. The Son’s presence is literally God’s gift to us.

Present

Being present is your gift to the world too. You are here on purpose. In our crazy world, there are so many distractions. From pain and past experiences to media and someone else’s imagination, we are often drawn into a solitary state, alone with our thoughts.

Planning is important. Learning and growing from past experiences is too, but we cannot live in those nonexistent realms, we need to be in the room, mindful and engaged in order to live out our purpose.

Family

Most of us don’t choose our family. We may choose a spouse or adopt children or others into our lives, but as infants, we do not choose. As we grow our family is often fluid, changing by marriage, birth, location, abilities, achievements, decisions, and, deaths. Each person is a gift to those around them, though.

Holidays can be difficult for people with dysfunctional families or distant family members. I’ve spent holidays alone or with strangers and once, with my grandmother, who suffered with Alzheimer type dementia. So, essentially, alone. It’s hard to know what to do. Should you call someone? Maybe you could get together with others for a while or talk on the phone or message them? Perhaps, wait it out and get together after the day passes? There is no right or wrong answer because everyone is unique.

Every child comes from the “Father of Lights” We are told to shine as a light in the world. Many family environments do not facilitate shining. Some downright squash and crush the spirit of the children or worse, abuse them into becoming ash. Being burnt out by their elementary years is a travesty of our time.

Community

When we are old enough to choose our community, we begin to design our lives. The definition of community is enough to fill a book. It is often thought of in terms of a groups of people with common interests, or within a geographic area, but it is so much more.

We can have an online community or a local community. You and I create our community by communicating. We communicate with words or ideas translated into language of some kind. How ever we do it, our community shapes us as much as we shape the community we create.

Too often we forget that we have creative power and the environment and community around us dictates our responses and imposes our emotions, but we can choose. Choosing is our super power. We can communicate and create our lives by being present, in the moment and deciding what we want, even as children, if we know how.

Choose

It is my hope and prayer that you will be present and bring yourself as the gift to the people around you. Also, that we adults would pass on the treasures of communication and decision-making to the children in our lives, so that they too can do the same.

We are able to choose, life and blessing or death and cursing. That means everyone is able to choose. Choosing good for ourselves and others is a noble and praiseworthy venture, but that doesn’t always happen. When people choose to do bad things to others, it doesn’t mean they deserved bad treatment. Each of us is responsible for our own choice.

It’s not your fault, if you were abused. It is solely the abuser’s fault. You and I are only responsible for our choices, each one, one after another, and in every single moment, we choose to be present or absent. We choose blessing or cursing.

The greatest thing, is that the present is now. You and I can make a new choice. We get to choose differently, if things are not what we’d hoped. Staying in the moment and being present gives us the ability to crate our lives.

What will you create?