in the blink of an eye...

While at work,someone asked me yesterday,“where’s MY golden years?”I stopped and realized that I didn’t have anything profound, witty or comforting to say.She was lying there in her bed,looking at me and waiting…Waiting for me to tell her how to find that which,by all estimations,is gone.She recently had one of her legs amputated right below the knee.She sleeps a lot.Maybe she dreams of that life she imagined to happen when she finally was able to enjoy the fruit of years of labor working toward those elusive golden years.She had plans to spend a lot of time with the husband she has been with almost fifty years.She planned to be one of those grandmas that go to tea parties,the zoo,and on picnics.But everything changes. Because of choices we make in one part of our life there often times are consequences in later parts of our lives.She likes to cook.She and her husband owned restaurants.Now she watches The Food Network on a small television on her dresser. Things change…a lot.Some dreams don’t change and they die hard. Sometimes they die with us.Maybe that’s the last part of us to let go in the slow march to our graves. Maybe that’s all that really keeps us alive sometimes.We desperately cling and hang on to something that takes on a healing and saving role.I have never been one to dash anyone’s dreams or belief in potential miracles.My job is to bring hope and encouragement. If you are an encourager you are truthful and will not give fake compliments and fan the flames of false hope.You don’t have trite textbook answers to the hard questions.You are one of God’s greatest miracles and capable of bringing the truth and hope that lives within us.Encouragers will tell you to do the thing you are called to do—the thing you are most enthusiastic about, the thing that makes you smile just thinking about it—and never worry about how something will happen. Encouragers know that the “how” always shows up when you follow your heart. Encouragers help us to see possibilities that sometimes are obscured by our lack of vision. This is the thing that is so much more important than any pill I can bring you today.Being here in the moment…being present is the thing that goes beyond what is easily understandable.On the days that I struggle the most with the whys of what I do and where I work God speaks to me in a way I can’t ignore.He picks that certain someone who disarms me and challenges me to remember that I am a mere dispenser of his grace…nothing more and nothing less.I have no easy set answers for your hard question today but…I’m listening,God.