Last night, we jumped in the car around 10 PM for science. Leo wanted to go right down the road to Rainbow Ranch, because you can see everywhere from there, but it is spooky. We ended up on a dirt road near the recycling center instead. Last night was peak comet viewing. Unfortunately, we did not see anything, because most of the fam has astigmatism—something we realized—when Josh said, "Look for a fuzzy light under the moon," to which Lily replied, "Really? They're all fuzzy." 

We drove towards Primus to turn around, and this sudden wave of sadness hit me square in my chest as Jackson Brown played over the radio. I had this memory of sitting on my dad's back porch, the kids in the pool, his Jackson Brown album on the record player. Daddy would sit and smoke and we would talk. The last time we were there, I remember thinking in that moment how these chats were not always going to be. 

These 10 PM jaunts for science with the whole crew in tow are not going to always be either. 

I put my phone down and sat in silence thinking about everything happening in this season and realized quickly why I spend so much time pouring over useless, needless, social-media information. When I sit in my own thoughts, fear creeps in, then worry, then this complete sadness that always just sits. It never goes away. My dad's death was the lynch pin to the rest of my story. His death was the beginning of realizing the end—my end—is coming one day. That these lived moments—these happy, lived-in experiences with my sweet children—will one day fade into memory. 

The phone is another escape into self-deceiving, into thinking that there is enough time to waste—when in fact—there is not. Today’s things are for today and for the ones who fill it. Every nook and cranny of our lives must be lived to the all-out fullest. No stone left unturned or unplaced. Last week's ongoing ordeal with the funeral home was old business. Dad's been in the ground for three years and I am ready to move on. 

Things happen in the time it happens, and we are meant to keep those things there and embrace the present. We are not meant to dwell in the past. (or the future) The fact is, you will miss what mercies God wants you to have today, if you are living somewhere else. 

A friend of mine shared a reel last week about daily bread, the gist of which said that when we pray, we ask God for our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11) Bread is what we need and only God knows that. If we are hellbent on staying in the past (or the uncertainty of the future), we will miss today's bread. 

The Bible also says, "His mercies are new every morning," (Lamentations 3:22-23). His mercies are not recycled from yesterday but renewed daily. They never end and provide a fresh start every single day. 

You cannot pour new wine into old wine skins. The fermenting wine releases gases that expand the leather, causing the old skin to burst. Today is today’s day. We were not meant to carry it all into tomorrow. Some things are best left, behind.

Then there are the things that we think we’ve left behind, things we have shoved off and run away from that haven’t actually left us and just keep tainting everything despite all our efforts to forget: things that have hurt us, things that are hard to talk about, and things that we would rather have fade into the background. As a result, there are real, systematic and physiological remnants of hurt that show up in our physical being. 

I struggle with unforgiveness. I am so vindictive. I hold on to wrongs and punish those I deem were reckless with my heart. I am quite evil in that sense. I have no qualms about cutting someone completely out of my life once certain lines are crossed, but that has kept me in bondage in ways I am just now realizing are detrimental to my mental and physical health. 

I constantly find myself overreacting to every little insignificant thing. I am in a constant state of anxiety and I am angry. There are so many things happening in our world today that are beyond the realm of understanding and there is no way they all will get "resolved," that is, until Jesus and the new heavens and the new earth. 

I call myself a Christian and there is this incessant hardness in my heart, where I shout justice for some and indifference to others. I hate hurt. I have hurt my entire life. Hurt ties into injustice and I don't know how to better explain that at this time. I feel it in my chest, as this pressure that just sits and when I think of my unforgiveness, I am totally aware of the injustice of it. It is extremely heavy and all-consuming. 

I need to forgive. There are three that I have struggled to forgive in this last year and it is time. I am a Christian and I know firsthand how He forgives and yet, I am consumed with this hatred that cannot continue beyond today. I had no intentions of going here and yet, as I sit here, in these feelings, looking outside at the blue sky and the bright sunlit colors, I cannot fully enjoy it. I must repent. 

I need today's bread and wine, not yesterday's rot and vinegar.

I want a fresh start—like God’s mercies every morning— to enjoy today’s sunshine and not be stuck in last year’s rain. Lord, forgive me.

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one." (Matthew 6:9-13)