When a baby is born into the world, everything is new. Everything.
Every sight, every smell, every moment is a new experience. To begin with it
all mixes together to form an overwhelming cacophony of newness until
eventually things start to become familiar and normal. With every new
experience there is new delight (or sometimes disgust) to be found. In some
ways I can very much relate. I like to think that I’ve always been one to enjoy
life, but having spent over a year sheltered away through illness, now that I’m
re-emerging into the world everything seems to have a new brightness to it.
Things I had forgotten about and didn’t even realise I missed come back in vibrant
technicolour. Everything from bird song in my ears and a cold wind against my
skin to being able perform a cheeky little skip when I think no-one’s looking
(not that I’m admitting to doing that…)
It’s a good reminder that life is amazing and beautiful. Although
though it’s sometimes hard to understand, or sometimes even just plain hard,
even then it is still amazing and beautiful. And God is at work in it at all
times, and He always gives good gifts to us. I can only hope that this moment
and the lessons from this journey can last. I pray that when life starts to seem
mundane again and the colour begins to drain from it, I might then remember
this time and the colour would begin to flood my world again. Because God is
always good. If only I would remember to remember that a little more often!
This week has been the first full week that I have been
better and it has been incredibly exciting (in case you hadn’t picked up on
that already). I’ve wanted to do everything imaginable! But I haven’t. I have
been surprisingly self-restrained. When I got better I felt very strongly that
it was important to keep this first week apart from everything else and
reserved just for my family and for God (so if I haven’t replied to your email
yet, I’m sorry but at least now you know why!) I wanted to save this time as
both a mark of respect and an act of love and devotion. And because selfishly although
I wanted to do everything and spend time with everyone, they (my family and
God) were the people I most wanted to spend my time with and I really wanted to
reconnect with them. And I’m very glad I did. Apart from achieving all that I’d
hoped for, it made me realise something else very important.
At the beginning of this week I felt like I could do
anything, and I mean anything. And I’m not talking Mathew 19:26. At the beginning
of the week I think I probably thought that I could climb Everest whilst
carrying a rhino and playing a kazoo. I can’t. Playing a kazoo is surprisingly
hard. Okay, so I was never very likely to try to do any of that, but I think I
would have very gladly booked up every second of every minute of the rest of
the year and been convinced that it wouldn’t have been too much. I was wrong.
My lovely physio pointed out this week that I had done virtually no exercise
whatsoever for over a year, which meant that it would take time for me to
regain my physical fitness no matter how great I felt. Not only that, but the
same applied to my mental state too. He told me that I need to take things
slowly and the even just a twenty minute walk would leave me feeling worn out.
He was right. A fact I unwittingly proved shortly after the appointment. So I
will follow my physio’s advice and realise that this advice is for much more
than just this one time in my life.
You see, this isn’t the first new chapter in my life and
looking back I can see a pattern. In the excitement of the new beginning, the
new direction, the calling I feel from God, I want to respond instantly. I want
to do everything at once. I want to dive straight in and do everything right
away. Which just isn’t possible. And all too easily I can find myself
overwhelmed with everything happening at once. And then all too easily the
important things in life can get pushed out by the urgent things in life.
Things that only exist so quickly and so urgently because I rushed in too soon.
Life is a marathon not a sprint. Not even Roger Bannister could win a marathon
in the first mile. So I will take this new beginning slowly and ease myself into
this next chapter of my life. I hope that from now on whatever new chapters
come my way, I will always take time to pause and let God be my pace setter.
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