Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.
Only five minutes.
And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.
Today, her topic choice is "Backwards…"
So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.
Ready? Set. Go.
::
When my nephew Alex was a little boy, he was instantly athletic. He could throw a ball before he understood what it was. He never just dribbled, he dribbled and juked. His dad, my brother Jim, used to hold both of Alex's tiny feet in one hand and walk around with him like that. Alex would stand in his hand, straight as a pin. He was just born agile.
And then there was Anna. She was a year younger and could speak in sentences before she could walk in a straight line. She was a thinker. She was eloquent. And she was oh-so-proud when she was able to show us that she had a trick, too.
She stood up straight, held her arms out to steady herself like she was mastering a tightrope, and she walked backwards.
Oh, we ooohed and ahhhed and clapped and cheered. While Anna ended up being an incredible athlete herself, it's funny to remember it all started with taking a few steps back.
I feel like I've had the opposite story of Anna. She started slow and worked her way up… and I started fast and worked my way slow.
My 20th high school reunion is coming up this summer, and the girl who never missed a chance to participate is now the girl who can't go home. I was the girl who couldn't wait to tackle life, and now I'm the girl without the husband and kids and career and life that everyone brags about at these things.
Because my life went completely backwards.
But life isn't meant to be lived looking backwards in the rearview mirror, missing what was. Or lived looking forward on the sometimes scary what-could-be road ahead. Because the truth is that none of us can really control either one.
In the end, we just have to trust that He has His eyes on the big picture, and make sure that the life we're living in the here-and-now is filled with moments that matter.