That Abundant Kind of Life...

I'm feeling a definite shifting going on in my heart again, and I'm so grateful for it that I'm almost afraid to talk about it out of fear that it might dash away again if I shine too much light in its direction...

For a while now I have felt numb to life, like I was just 'going through the motions' and not feeling much or experiencing much along the way. I was on 'autopilot' and the days were flying by with no distinction or color in them. But the last week or so, I have felt that familiar yearning for more again, and my heart is actively becoming a part of all the little moments in my day.

And it all started with a sunset. I was about to leave Target and I stopped in the little Starbucks in there to bring home a yummy drink for Chris before I left. I ordered his drink and went over to the large window to look out while I waited. I was feeling numb. And empty. But there was the most amazing bright blue and orange swirly cloud-filled sunset going on just above my head. And there, through the dirty picture window at a random Target in the middle of Oklahoma, I got a glimpse of God again. I sat there for a long time and breathed in and out deeply while trying to capture the image of the sky in my mind for good. I drove home feeling filled up.

And since then, I've been feeling this life bubble up slowly, and I have started desiring to get up early just to read and pray and drink my coffee in my living room before Ezra wakes up. (Because as I am slowly learning, the only time in the day that is really all mine is that sleepy time in the morning before my son stirs in his crib.) I feel new-ness again, like a page is slowly being turned in my life and it's just about to drop down to reveal what's on the other side.

I want to get a part-time job. Something I can do two or three evenings a week.
I want to start writing more music. And actually do something with it.
I want to write a children's book.
I want to write a big-people book.
I want to have friendships that challenge me and enrich my life.

This, right now, is LIFE. And what am I doing with it? I want to LIVE it well. LIVE it fully. I don't want it to pass by me, swollen with uneventful days that all blur together and get lost forever. There's more to life than this. And I feel like it's right under my nose.

I just finished reading a book called "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. It's an amazing book. In it, the 15 year-old girl named Francie writes this prayer in her journal near the end of the novel. I decided to make it my prayer, too:

"Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be happy; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry... have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed.
Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

So I'm ready to start living that abundant kind of life that doesn't care what the norm is, or what others have to say about it. The kind of life that is contagious and has no intention of 'staying within the lines'... the kind that always has more goals than regrets and that gets brighter and stronger with every single year that goes by.