Living life in the middle

I think there are plenty of things that make life difficult. Perhaps the one that stands out for me is the inability to live life in the middle.

I am roller-coaster bound most times, most days, many nights. Momentum sweeps me up, and I roar. Then, somehow, someway, I crash. Been doing it all my life. Expect I always will.

This morning I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep till about 5:45. I woke again after a couple hours, hours of struggle, and I feel wasted.

Last week, we sat outside at night in the back yard of our new parsonage, new to us anyway, and started up into a startling bright sky it not being full moon and us living in a town now for the first time in a while. I remember saying how blessed we are to my wife, Mary.

Today? I'm wasted. Don't want to do anything today. I'm suddenly reminded that it's been more than a year since we've gone away on even a short vacation. I'm suddenly reminded that I really in the long run don't have a plan, an agenda, as someone asked me about last night at a first worship meeting. And I'm suddenly reminded that no matter how young I feel or how young I project I'm living in my 60th year of existence.

My agenda? Well, to bring people to Christ? How? If I knew, really knew, the way wouldn't I already be doing it daily? It's the great mystery, I suspect. All we can do is our best, use our gifts and graces as best we can, and pray like the dickens.

But today? I'm wasted. I have a Rotary Club meeting to go to in Kinder, one in which I have no idea what I'm doing there or what I can bring to the occasion, but I'll go because they expect me to. Even though I'm wasted.

Perhaps living is best done in those moments when we have to try the hardest, work the most, to get something out of the day. Perhaps that's when those blessings we all want to continue every day sneak up on us.

Perhaps.

But today? I'm wasted.