Seasons and Horizons

There are seasons when life doesn’t necessarily go wrong.

It just gets full.

One responsibility turns into another. Something at work needs your attention. There is a phone call you need to make, an appointment you need to schedule, somebody you’re concerned about, something at home that needs to be handled.

None of it seems overwhelming by itself.

But somehow, by the end of the day, the things you meant to do for yourself are still sitting there waiting.

I’ve noticed that happening to me lately.

I haven’t written much in the last couple of weeks. It isn’t because I’ve run out of things to write about. Quite the opposite.

I have photographs, videos, memories and stories from California. I have experiences from the Seychelles that I could probably turn into several posts. I have notes and ideas from hikes, travels, conversations and ordinary moments that caught my attention.

The material is there.

What hasn’t been there is the space.

My mind has been moving from one thing to another—work, responsibilities, people, decisions, things I need to take care of. I’ve even caught myself putting off simple things like making doctor’s appointments, not because they aren’t important, but because something else always seems to move in front of them.

And somewhere in all of that, writing got pushed aside too.

That’s what made me think about how easily this happens.

We tend to believe that if something really matters to us, we’ll naturally make time for it.

I’m not sure that’s always true.

Sometimes the things that matter most are the easiest things to postpone because they aren’t demanding anything from us.

Work will demand our attention.

Deadlines will.

Other people will.

Bills will.

Problems certainly will.

But the quiet things usually don’t.

A walk doesn’t call and ask why you haven’t shown up.

A blank page doesn’t complain because you haven’t written on it.

A Bible sitting beside the bed doesn’t send a reminder.

A sunset doesn’t wait until you’ve finished everything else.

And the people we love sometimes understand when we say, “I’ve just been busy.”

So the things that restore us, ground us and remind us who we are can slowly move toward the edges of our lives.

Not because we’ve decided they don’t matter.

Because we’ve allowed everything else to matter first.

Maybe that’s one of the dangers of a full life.

You can spend an entire day doing things that genuinely needed to be done and still reach the end of it feeling as though you missed something.

I’ve felt that lately.

And perhaps the answer isn’t some dramatic restructuring of life. Maybe it begins much smaller.

Make the appointment.

Take the walk.

Call the person.

Say the prayer.

Write the paragraph.

Sit quietly for ten minutes.

Do one thing that doesn’t belong to the demands of the day but belongs to you.

Because I’m beginning to realize that protecting those things isn’t selfish. They are often the very things that allow us to return to everything else with a clearer mind and a quieter heart.

There will probably always be another responsibility waiting.

There will always be another problem to solve.

Life has a remarkable ability to fill whatever space we give it.

Maybe that’s why we have to intentionally leave a little space unfilled.

Space for God.

Space for people.

Space for ourselves.

Space to notice the ordinary gifts we would otherwise walk right past.

I’m writing this tonight partly because I needed to remind myself of that.

There are plenty of stories I’ve been meaning to tell.

They’ll come.

But tonight, perhaps this was the story I needed to tell first.