Five Minute Friday: After

Happy Friday!For a few months now, I’ve the pleasure of participating in Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday blogging challenge. Every Friday, a group of eclectic bloggers turn off our inner critics and perfectionists and just write for five minutes straight. Zero editing. Just a stream of consciousness free for all. And then we all link up and encourage each other. To learn more about Five Minute Friday and how you can participate click here.This Friday's topic is AFTER.***Go. I thought that after I moved, it would all make sense. The burnout, therestlessness, the ache in my heart to live in a foreign country that never went away.Then, after I got settled, I would be happy.After I made more friends, I would feel home.After I set a schedule, I'd feel peace.After I started a new job, I've feel engaged and connected and alive.But it wasn't so.It's not that I'm not happy, it's just that I'm still waiting for the AFTER.After I get in shape, I'll be happy with my body.After I go to Spanish school, I'll be fluent and confident and no-longer-shy.After I write, I'll feel accomplished.After I pray, I'll be at peace.But the AFTER never comes.The waiting-for-something-better becomes a trap. A prison. A recipe for discontent.Because life isn't in the AFTER. God isn't in the AFTER.Life is HERE, right now. God is HERE, right now.

In the flowers on my table. In the words I tap-tap-type.That's the idea of GRATITUDE. The awakening of joy in the current moment.So I surrender my clinging to the AFTER. This unfreedom of waiting. The discontent of a life disjointed into BEFORE and AFTER.I forget the BEFORE and AFTER. I open my eyes to the HERE.