The Next Very Important Thing ...

So there he is ... last Saturday morning ... about to take off for 23 days.

I can't get to the rest of the pix ... the card didn't read ... the transfer of the other pictures didn't work yesterday ... and because I was working with someone else's computer while they weren't there, I was hustling through and didn't even stop to look at the pictures I had taken ... 

I can't believe I didn't even stop yesterday to look through them.

As I drove to Gatlinburg this morning praying for AJ and wishing I'd just lingered for a moment to look at the few shots of this boy I realized how much yesterday is a picture of how go through most of my life-

how many times had I done the very same thing already at 8am this morning ... I did something quick, with the intent to go back and do it with more passion, completion, depth later on ... and yet, because of a glitch, later on will have to wait.

I did my quiet time before I left. But by the time Jena asked me if I'd read it, I couldn't tell you one single thing that was in the reading. Not one. I even said to myself, I'll re-read that later. When I get back. I'm supposed to be in Gatlinburg @9am. Must get to the next, more fulfilling very important thing on my list.

I listened with such intensity to my husband that I had to leave myself a message on my phone to remind myself to call him and ask what he needed. I needed to get on with the next very important thing on my list.

I texted a friend who is searching and lonely because I promised I would, but confess it was obligatory. Hey, just checking in!! How's your heart? Hmm ... no response (and no fancy smart phone to know if she's seen it or not) ... she's probably still sleeping. Okay ... I need to move on to my next very important thing on my list. She didn't respond until well into the afternoon. It had been a terrible day for her. She's not a believer and trying to figure it all out. She'd waited to text back when she 'had it all together this afternoon' ... wow ... good thing for me because I needed to move on to the next very important thing on my list this morning.

I texted another friend who to check on a situation in her family. Again, no response. Moving right along to the next very important thing on my list.

Oh ... a young woman I used to go to church with asked if I'd take her Sr. Pictures ... text ... no response.

And I arrive at the childhood home of my college roommate. WE have the ability to pick up and start conversation right where we left off ... as if time hasn't passed and we still know each other. It's uncanny really considering today is the most time we've spent with each other in 22-23 years. Seriously. Life has happened on each end ... good and bad, easy and hard. Right now, some of the hard is showing through the smile on her sweet face.

And I caught myself as we moved from topic to topic, memory to memory realizing I was doing it there too ...

moving on the the next very important thing.

I have forgotten the beauty of the conversation complete, the smile connected, the voice heard, the plea answered, the promise kept ... and the hurt acknowledged. I have forgotten that all that the next very important thing on my list offers is a moment of new and novel ... I've come to value that more than I value the intimacy of the moment. The moment of significance. The moment of conveying that who I am with is so much more important than the what's coming next. I treat my to do list as that which can fulfill ... building my own ego with all the lives I've touched ... when the only real evidence of touching their lives are the fingerprints I've left on the well-worn keypad of my phone ... I've saved the rest for myself. Time to shop. Time to lay on my couch the past couple of days and feel sorry for myself. Time to ride my bike because it was what I wanted.

And so I backed up ... I stopped asking questions that lead us down new paths. I retraced the steps of the conversations that caused her to gaze out the window instead of casting her sparkly eyes my way ... I took more time to listen than to talk. I stopped thinking about AJ and how much I miss him. I stopped wondering how I was going to get the other pictures. I stopped thinking about what I was going to do when I left ... and what had to be done when I returned home.

And I started thinking about why God had allowed this divine moment in time to happen ... why she'd called me when she has 20 years of other friends to call upon ... and then I just started listening ... with my heart and my ears to her heart ... and all of a sudden ... there wasn't a next very important thing that had to be done ...

there was just this moment. And it was fleeting. But I believe it meant something to her that I took the time to drive an hour and half to listen for two hours ... to then drive an hour and a half back home ... and because I had listened, i wasn't just praying for the words she spoke ...

I was able to pray for the hurt that she didn't have words to define.

I wish I'd taken the time to make sure the pictures were securely on my flash drive ... and not rushed off to go to Walmart ... to get to dinner 20 minutes early ...

then I could look at my boy that I miss so much.

I think when he's back in my house, I won't be so quick to rush him to the very next important thing ... because I am convinced that the really important things in life happen when we are not rushing.