complacency

*I wrote this last summer, July 2011, and am posting it now to share. Thank you for reading. 

Complacent, according to Webster, is when someone is “self satisfied, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”

I am complacent on a daily basis regarding numerous things, and it is not pretty nor something of which I am proud. There are days I grow lazy in my faith, secure and happy and therefore have no need for discipline or my bible or even still silence.

Scripture tells us the Lord has plans for us. Yet I have shaken my fist towards the heavens several times at these plans. Jay Chenoweth’s cancer, hardships I’ve seen in others’ lives, the obstacles I faced after joining Teach for America. In pain, a loud, questioning “Why” has escaped from my lips, even as I know I should trust. And even recently, watching events removed from own life unfold, I wonder at the “plan for good. ” When an innocent firefighter dies while taking his son to a baseball game: tragedy that appears needless is all around us.

In my own time of rest and slowing things down a few notches these past five weeks, I have been hit in the face with what I take for granted. I have seen with new eyes the numerous blessings of my life. There is a lot of mess in this world, and quite frankly, people who are horrible parents. I speak not even of the ones that try their best and fail, no, I speak of parents abandoning, neglecting, abusing their children. I’ve witnessed it in 77024, one of the wealthiest zip codes in the entire nation, as well as 77099, where it is not uncommon for drive-bys and robberies and drug deals to happen daily.

Through no merit of my own, I have two of the most wonderful, life-giving, uplifting, caring parents on the planet. Two! I know so many out there who only have one, so I am twice blessed to be sure.

This time last year my mom had just wrapped up six weeks of radiation therapy to beat the cancer that had grown inside of her. I am not sure why she was given a green “go” card, while others have been handed the red “stop” card in life. But it is not our role or our responsibility to understand. We can and will as humans go crazy, literally crazy I believe, trying to make this puzzle of life fit. This is not a cookie cutter world. Things do not always add up.

But I know this: time with my mom is sweet. It is a gift that I hope I never take for granted again. Though she annoys me when she talks so loudly (we’re in the same room, no need to shout), or she wears strange clothes from time to time, or even as she says embarrassing things, she is my mom. In a world where those around me have loved ones taken from them in an instant, such as the young children from Briargrove who made the news last week when their parents died in a car crash while returning from Colorado, I am appreciate of mine more than ever.

Friday night my mom and I spoke in British accents and watched “The King’s Speech,” wearing sweaty workout clothes because neither of us felt like showering after a Pilates class. It was not glamorous, it was not something out of the ordinary, and yet, it was blissful. I am not sure that life gets better than those small moments.

Though I realize today as I my fingers toss out words on this computer, I may sound a bit sad. But the truth is, I have never felt more joy. I do not operate from a place of fear or frustration, but simply walk in the light that this life I’ve got is good. These people I’ve been given are incredible.

I desire no longer to be complacent with loved ones, to treat them as if there are not “actual dangers” as the dictionary says, to ignore the fact that life is a gift, that though “The grass withers and the flowers fade the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8

My prayer for any readers, friend or stranger, is that you find the time this month, this day, this hour, to love the ones you’ve been given to love, and to feel their love back. 

Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.