“Can we skip to the good part?”
The girls and I had an amazing weekend in Colorado. Not only did we get to see a beautiful part of this amazing country, we were able to watch one of the girls’ favorite bands, AJR, performing at Red Rocks. We had an amazing weekend thrifting in the cutest little stores, ate amazing local food, floated down a river, hiked through Red Rocks, and ended the weekend with the high energy concert singing along to all our favorite songs. The girls introduced me to this band and I have come to love their lyrics. I previously blogged about their “100 bad days” song and this week, it is about “The Good Part”. One of the lines in the song is “Can we skip to the good part?” It’s how I feel multiple times throughout the day. I get it, I know it is God’s timing and not mine. I know I am supposed to trust God and I know that my path, my journey is ordained by God and not by me. But sometimes, I just want to skip to the good part. Don’t we all? As I sat there in these special moments this weekend, I realized I have been wanting to skip to the good part, but I was not seeing that I am living the good part right now. I don’t know about you, but when something is off, or not going right in my life, I have a tendency to focus on that one thing. This weekend was a reminder, thanks to these young artists, that I don’t need to skip to the good part, I am living the good part. A dear friend shared a verse that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalms 34:18, NIV). That’s what He did this weekend. I may be crushed in spirit, but he reminded me that He is close and He is here to save me and is doing it every moment of every single day.
In times of my life, I have been so focused on the goal, on the endgame, that I failed to celebrate or enjoy the here and now. If I remain focused on what I want in the future, or the end, I become blinded to the things that are here and now. I would have missed the beauty of the sunset over Red Rocks. I would have missed seeing my girls laughing, dancing and singing with each other while enjoying a trip of a lifetime surrounded by God’s beauty. I would have missed seeing the lone deer with antlers wrapped in velvet eating by the roadside while the entire world moved around it oblivious to this distractions. I would have missed the endless effort of trying to stay together on the rafts as we floated downriver realizing the impossibility of staying together throughout that journey and gaining the knowledge that we were each on our own path-and we were more than ok. I would have missed amazing handmade dumplings. I would have missed countless naps-there were so many! I would have missed living.
Another line of AJR’s song, is “these things take time”-yes, they do. That doesn’t mean that we don’t “live” while we wait for the good part. It doesn’t mean that we don’t celebrate and love those moments while we wait in hope for things to come. God doesn’t want us to just get to the good part, He is refining us in the part that takes time.
Today, I pray that you accept the time it takes and not be so focused on the getting to the good part that you fail to see all the good parts of your life. I pray that you not miss living in the waiting.
I pray these words spoke to you, please share with a friend. Don’t miss blog post, subscribe to my web page.
