Oh the places you go!

Over the last few years, there have been intense days where my mind wants to be anywhere but the present. Times when I know that my "fight or flight" reflex is kicking in...and I'm leaning way more on the "flight" side than the "fight" side. I imagine "running away" alone, getting in my car and just driving, I imagine running away as a family... (the image of packing all the pills and meds kind of ruins the daydream... But i go there anyways.) But sometimes, my mind just runs away on its own...wanders back in *time* to specific moments.
Tofino.
Wide stretches of empty, cool beach. Watching the kids running on ahead... Free.
Wooden swords and shields from the Coombs marketplace swinging wildly.
I remember that hike along the ocean cliffs and forest at "Beachy Head" with all the kids and grandparents and the smell of moss, ferns, arbutus and ocean spray...
I remember that long prairie walk as a family through the fields.
The smell of alfalfa.
The sound of combines and the "aplause" of the forest of poplar leaves along the open field. I remember moments as a child, sliding open my bedroom window to press my nose against the screen and smell the coming winter air and hear the chickadees sing that minor tune they sometimes sing. I remember moments as a teen diving into the okanagan water, deep, deep down. The further down, the cooler the water became and the better it felt when that wild summer sun would find me again at the surface. I remember the day i revisited the run-down farm of my grandparents, now long gone, and the sensation that came over me as I imagined it the way it was...juxtaposed against what it is now. That moment made time, heaven, death, and life all new again. Where does your mind go when it craves an escape? Have you saved any precious moments? Do you breathe life into them? Draw strength from them, so you have enough for what lies ahead?

Promises

The promise is greater than "new circumstance"...

Isaiah 40:31

31But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Waiting on the One who holds me together.... As a science lesson/second bible study today, we watched Louie Giglio's session "How Great is Our God". That, coupled with my reading of Werner Keller's book "The Bible as History - A Confirmation of the Book of Books", has been such an encouragement to me this week. I disconnected from Facebook for now as I've been feeling so discouraged and distracted and figured I needed to just pull back and focus again on the things I want so much to *be* my focus... "Forgetting what is behind"... I'm going to "press on"...and wait on the Lord as He shows me exactly *how* to wait. It's not my forte... To wait... But the promise Is worth the lesson in discipline.

In the image of God

Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains,
the huge waves of the sea,
the long course of rivers,
the vast compass of the ocean,
the circular motion of the stars...
But they pass by themselves
and don't even notice.
- Augustine -