cold tangerines: celebrating the extraordinary nature of everyday life

After feeling like I want too much from life earlier this week, I was comforted by two different sources. First my dear friend Luci reminded me that maybe the desires of my heart are not wrong but placed there for a reason. As difficult as being patient is, I am willing to try--especially since I have good friends like Luci willing to help me in the process.

The second source of encouragement came from a book my good friend Jen picked out. Called cold tangerines: celebrating the extraordinary nature of everyday life by Shauna Niequist, it starts with a section called "On Waiting" that spoke exactly to how I was feeling when I wrote that last post. Since I loved the way she said it, I won't bother summarizing it. Here's what she wrote:

I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head I was always one step away. ...

But this is what I'm finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I'm waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets--this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. ...

I don't want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That's the drama of life swirling all around us, and generally I don't even see it, because I'm too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. ...

You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.

You are more than dust and bones. 

You are spirit and power and image of God.

And you have been given Today.