Waiting

I'm waiting.  Waiting to hear news; waiting to hear something, anything.  While you wait for news your brain begins to make its own news.  Sometimes you can imagine the best news and your reaction to it.  Sometimes you imagine the worse news and your reaction to it.  I remember waiting about 9 months ago to hear if our daughter would have downs syndrome or not.  That was a long week for me.  I imagined so many different outcomes and reactions.  The night before I find out she would not have DS I was overcome with a sense of peace that no matter the outcome everything would be alright.  I am waiting for that peace to wash over me now.  I am waiting.

Life is so beautiful.  I have always loved living.  My life has not always been full of joy but even in the tears I have loved living.  Tears and laughter are both important parts of life.  Beginnings as well as endings are beautiful parts of life.  In between the beginning and the ending, for me, is almost too hard to describe with one adjective.

I like relationships.  My dad wrote me a love letter when I was 16.  He told me that the most important part of our lives are our relationships with others and with God.  I think Christ said something similar to that when He said the greatest commandment is this "love your God and love your neighbors as yourself".  I really do try to do this.  I fail...I fail a lot.  I get frustrated with "my neighbors".  I get annoyed with them and even angry.  I make jokes about them actually.  I am not nice really.  I hope though that my love wins out in the end.  I really do love the people in my life.  I like the interactions between people.  I even like to watch others interacting.  I love the banter of a good conversation, the back and forth like a tennis match.  I like watching people care for one another.  I love watching someone bend over and help another up.

Life is beautiful.  With the ups and with the downs, I will always say life is beautiful.

Love.  Love is key.  I wish we could stop our need for putting people into groups.  I wish we could stop looking at how we are different and focus on how we are alike.  I wish we could focus on how to help each other through our times of tears and how to laugh with each other through our times of joy.  I think that I truly hate divisions.  Divisions break my heart.  I wish we could go into the discomfort of true unity.  That we could embrace each other because we are the same in so many ways.  Love.  Love is key to solving the problems of this world.  Not bombs.  Not divisions.  Not war.  Not pointing fingers.  Just Love.  I capitalize Love on purpose.

Today can we look at each person we pass on the street and focus on what unites us and not what divides us.  As I wait for news, as I wait for peace to come washing over me like the rains of Indonesia, I will turn my focus not towards the unknown but towards this day.  I will focus on loving others.

I wait.  I Love.  Peace come.