Can you imagine that we spend six and a half months of our life looking for things we have misplaced or lost? That translates individually to two and a half days per year. I can’t beleive we lose that much time searching for something that’s most likely not far away from us, can you?

According to an IKEA study, our keys, our phones, or the chargers for those are high on the lost list. Then there are the glasses and the pen we were just using? Ah… after searching for about 15 minutes, we find them.

While this is a loss in personal daily time, I am thinking of much more serious loss. Even as I type these words, I have no perception of real, current devastation caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton. Not only is there a loss of things and stuff, but a catastropic loss of lives and homes… loss that defies understanding and comprehension.

Will the affected thousands, find life again?

I can’t answer that, and perhaps, you can’t, either. It is too BIG, too much loss for me to find the answer. I only know that loss hurts, it impairs us, it wrecks our normacly. And often we want to give up. We have friends who lost their husbands very recently; some who have lost children. Loss I cannot imagine. I grieve with them and for them. I cry with them.

We all have loss, some kind of misfortune, some sort of heartbreak. I have looked, searched, turned over every leaf!… looking for a “find” in my loss.

In no way, does my pain and the loss of walking into an active lifestyle I so enjoy compare to the losses of deep destruction; nevertheless, it is a current and difficult loss.

As I was bemoaning the question that I should be learning something from my acccident and its effects on life, my editor encouraged me with these words, “Barb, you don’t always need to learn something. I’m sure you are living in the truth you already know.” And then he gave me this verse. “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10). I simply keep trusting in the God I have learned to trust all these years. Especially in the dark, when all of life is hard.

Brennan Manning, the author of Ruthless Trust and the Ragamuffin Gospel, believed so firmly that God loves each of us with “with a depth that escapes human comprehension.” I read the following a few days ago, and wept for the truth I had just been reminded of:

Several years ago, when a minister-friend of mine bottomed out, resigned his chuch, and abandoned his family, he fled to a logging camp in New England. One wintry afternoon as he sat shivering in his aluminum trailer, the portable electric heater suddenly quit and died. Cursing this latest evidence of a hostile universe, the minister shouted, “God, I hate you!” then sank to his knees weeping. There in the bright darkness of faith, he heard Christ say: “I know; it’s okay.” Then the shattered man heard Jesus weeping within him. The minister stood up and started home. (P 284, Reflections for Ragamuffins)

Manning goes on to say that the Lord is fine-tuned to the hates and loves, dsiappointments and delights, brokenness and togetherness, the fears, joys and sorrows of each of us. These reminded me of one of my favorite verses found in Psalm 103:13-14. “As a father has compassion on his childdren, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed; He remembers that we are dust.”

This thought affirmed two truths for me that morning… Jesus loves me, this I know…yes, we all know that, but as important as that is, is the fact… Jesus knows me, this I love.

During these five slow, quieter months of walking in the dark, I have found that as I hold tightly to the truth that He is here, in the Now, He is. I am more aware of being here in the NOW, accepting this loss with a greater Find.

One late afternoon last week I was hobbling (with the walker) to the mailbox, when all of a sudden I stopped. A fresh presence of the moment wrapped me as I looked at the cows chewing the grass in the field. A moment of Now. I heard the Lord’s whisper… yes, you are here today, and I am with you. Yesterday morning, I stopped to appreciate the moment as two large deer ran across the road in the picture below from my office window.

What makes Now? I found 15 words that mean Now. My blog began in 2012 is titled A Journey to Now… While I’ve been walking this journey many years, I’m still finding new Nows— everyday. Now collects all the pasts together and prepares for the tomorrows.

Today is my birthday. I had believed I would be running by now. Not so. But I continue to discover a greater gift, that this moment, wherever it is and how it is… whatever it brings is the present, if I embrace His presence in the Now.

Easy? Always? Never… my heart cries for people everywhere who cannot find joy and peace in the mud… in the hard moments of life. Slowly, slowly the sun will shine and sweet memories will be remembered.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you” 2 Thessalonians 3:18

Finding His presence in the present…