We live in a moment called "now"

On Friday after a long day of work my mom talked to Brittany and I over the phone and gave us these words:

"They say if I live for another year it would be a miracle."

I held close to my new wife as she cried and as I thought. I thought about a lot of things in that moment. Mostly they came back to a constant thought of "wow, this is crazy."

My mom cried and I felt her pain. She apologized a number of times, though nothing was she at fault for. She never smoked, had a few glasses of champagne, never did drugs, and always was in good physical shape...and yet here she was...apologizing.

I took the phone as Brittany cried and I listened to my mom talk about how she wanted to do so many things before this all happened. She told me how she had to walk out of a restaurant because the sight of elderly people and babies and happy families was a little too much to deal with after just hearing the doctors prediction.

There are probably many reasons that I did not cry in that moment...not one of them being that I'm a cold hearted bastard. I just didn't cry. It could be that I had expected this to happen for some time. It could be that I was in too much shock to understand the weight of it all. Maybe it was that I felt that it wasn't the right time for me to cry with my mom, but to be gentle and comforting without sounding like a slobbering baby.

If you ever want advice from me you cannot get it if you just tell me the situation in 5 minutes and it be a serious one and then ask me what you should do. 1. I don't know 2. If I say anything I want it to be somewhat intelligent and thought out so that if you take my advice to heart it doesn't lead you into a bad place.

But this time I did not need much time to think about what kind of advice to give my mom. I mean, I can't really heal her and I can't tell her how to heal herself. I had one thought as soon as she told me what the doctor said and that one thought still lingers in my mind and has been reaffirmed by others I believe. This one thought may be why I didn't cry...

"You are alive just the same as the rest of us."

Please don't get me wrong and think that I am saying that I believe that God will heal my mom and that the cancer will go away and that she will be totally fine. Because I don't believe that. Not that I don't believe that God can do that, I'm just not putting my eggs in that basket. What if I'm not supposed to pray for my mom's healing. I mean that IS what I want, but in the garden Jesus didn't get what he wanted. He confessed what it was, but his prayer ultimately was "God do whatever you want". I will easily have Jesus tell God on my behalf that I would love for my mom's cancer to go away...but it is a little easier in some way to just tell God to do His thing in the end. It greatly reduces the disappointment when I don't get my way and I think it's because I didn't pray hard enough or I didn't have enough faith.

Anyways....back to my mom and to the rest of us....we are alive. And we are all going to die. I can't escape it any more than my mom can. Just because a doctor tells my mom she will live another year if she is lucky does not guarantee that I will live another year. You see what I'm saying here? If we focus totally on the future whatever it may be...good or bad...marriage or death...then what the hell is going on right now?

The truth is that the doctor doesn't know the future any more than I do. Again not saying my mom's cancer will be healed if we all pray hard enough...I'm just saying that we live in this moment. A very very bad preacher I heard in high school once said something very very good. He said, "We live in a moment called "now"". And that is the truth. All that you and I have is to build off of the past, not to linger on it...to hope in the future, not to linger on it...and to live right now in this moment that we are a part of.

How much time do we waste wrapping our lives up in this idea that we aren't exactly where we are supposed to be and once we get there God can really use us or once we get there we will be happy or once we get there (fill in your own blank). I would say we probably are in our lives where we are for some reason and God can probably use any of us in any situation, not matter how dull or mundane or normal our lives are. All I have is now. All my mom has is now. She can choose to live now or spend her time now thinking about tomorrow. I can choose to live now or to spend my time thinking about tomorrow.

The problem with tomorrow is that it rarely comes.