the most difficult conversation ever...

I just had one of the most difficult conversations with someone very dear to me...a much needed conversation about priorities.  People versus things...time versus money...you know, those kinds of priorities.  Things that last versus things that we will not take with us when we die...that kind of hard conversation.

My heart really hurts because what I was saying has been waiting to be said for a while...for years.  I'm not quite sure what brought the conversation about, other than one of my sons just kept asking me and asking me when he would get to see this very dear person.  I didn't have an answer.  I still don't.  What I said wasn't spoken in mean-ness...but receiving it was probably like taking that yucky vitamin syrup my parents used to give me when I was little...good, but bad tasting...so bad tasting that I can't for the life of me remember what it was called!

I can definitely say that I don't want to live life with regrets about wishing I would have done such and such differently.  That was probably another reason I felt compelled to share something so difficult.  Life here on earth with the people we love is really for such a short time...a brief moment...a breath.  These two blessings of mine will be on their own journey of life before I know it and for now, I am one of the only spokesmen for them. 

And so, I shared my heart...broken as it is over a matter of priorities.  And I discovered firsthand for the umpteenth time that life, most of the time, isn't like those great heart-to-heart conversations we see in those chick-flicks that give us the warm fuzzies.  Life instead leaves us reeling and wondering what in the world happened...everything was just going so well.  (Or so we thought...)  Life is hard.  Conversations can be hard.  And life is just plain messy.

Today, I also read a wonderfully amazing blog by Ann Voskamp one thing that helps any relationship.  In it, she talks about the art of subtraction...most specifically, in loving others...how can we love others when the board in their eye is blocking their face?!  When the words said in haste stab to the inmost depths of our being?  How to love others like God loves us...

Where does someone go when completely surprised by people and/or circumstances?  Only One Person in the entire world can give and give and give...and listen and listen and listen...and never turn foot and run.

I am still confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. ~Psalm 27:13,14

I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.  Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.  This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles.  The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.  Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.  Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing.  The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. ~Psalm 34: 4-10

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Thank You, Lord,

that no matter where I am

in life...

rejoicing from the tops of the mountains

or weeping in the depths,

reeling or confused,

I can praise You

and You can be trusted.