9 p.m. ….
What have I taken for granted ….? What is my “highest and most significant calling” at this juncture of life ….? How do we move forward in a “world” that is suddenly turned upside down and a paradox to that which we were experiencing ….?
Those are just a few of the many questions that I have grappled with since Irene was hospitalized at UCSF and where I was literally living for almost three months. Now that Irene is recovering at home, this peculiar and mysterious season has caused me “pause” related to many of our existing commitments and that of maintaining a well functioning house and home.
During this pause, I reflect upon the many times that I would come back to an empty house about once a week when Irene was at UCSF. It was very peculiar and surreal, knowing that Irene was lying in a hospital bed with an extremely rare disease, in harm’s way and about 100 miles away. I would hurriedly scramble through the “lonely” house to take care of necessary duties, i.e. laundry, water plants, pay bills, check for leaky faucets etc., dart here and there for local errands and finally rush back to San Francisco.
These new circumstances also cause me pause vocationally and avocation ally. It’s caused me to ask myself “To what am I giving most of my waking hours and my most productive years?” and “Does what I do really matter?” “And, if the answer is yes, to whom does it matter?”
The pause has especially caused me to further contemplate the TEMPORAL as opposed to the ETERNAL.
I appreciate what Ken Boa shares in his book, Conformed to His Image:
“People think they want pleasure, recognition, popularity, status, and power, but the pursuit of these things leads to emptiness, delusion, and foolishness. God has set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and our deepest desires are fulfillment (love, joy, peace), reality (that which does not fade away), and wisdom (skill in living). The only path to this true fulfillment lies in consciously choosing God’s value system over that which this world offers. This
