Signs of Spring

In the 17 months since we've moved to England I've been paying closer attention to the first thoughts I have in the morning during my first moments of consciousness.  Sometimes they feel like the clearest thoughts I have all day where things that are true stand out in sharp clarity before getting muddled and forgotten once I get up to face the tasks of the day.

I think the reason I've paid them more attention over the past year is because of all the changes in our lives.  In the first few months of moving my brain felt so weary from thinking and analyzing new social cues, new vocabulary, new places and customs and habits.  All the new things made all of the old things, all of my old memories, stand out really clearly in those early morning moments.  Some mornings I would wake up with a crystal clear image of Ella as a baby or what the heat felt like on my skin during our last week in Alabama.  It felt really hot.

This morning I woke up with the crystal clear realization that I am not getting any younger, that this is my one life and that I will only continue growing older.  I can't get back 18 and going off to college, 21 and getting engaged.  I can't turn back the clock to 24 and my first smiley squirmy baby.  I know this is a very obvious truth, but most of the time I don't really think about these things. My second thought of the morning was:  Man, you really need to eat healthier because this is the only body you've got.  While that may be true for now (and it is), while writing these things down I thought of something Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians that thankfully is more true than any clear thought I might have first thing in the morning.  "So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day."  Just like the flowers blooming and the trees budding, there are signs of new life being worked by Jesus in me.  So I will not lose heart.