Time is flying by as always...yes only 24 days and I find myself racing a triathlon. I also realised today that its been 6 years since my mom passed away, and how the years seem to go, the days seems to go and time is stopping for no one.
I was reminded of an email I had written awhile ago, about our calling in life and having different perspectives in life. You know training for a triathlon is hard work, add a disability to it and lets just say it is a slight bit extra work, but its been teaching me about who I am despite my disability,and really what i can do but not on my own but with people around me and with Christ. there is so much more to this race then me finishing but lets wait to see......and never forget we all have a calling its what we choose to do with it that matters.
here is the email I wrote back in 2008
Hi Friends.
Your calling is calling........
Last week Sunday we went to throw my mom's ashes in the sea. It was the most incredible day, definitely ordered by God. It was weird to take out the ashes and think that was my mom. It was just ashes in a bag. What it caused me see was that it was not her smile, it was not her smell, it was not her laughter, it was not her talkativeness, it was not her joy, it was not her dancing, it was not her extravagance, it was not her compassion, it was not her gracefulness, it was not her love, it was not her beauty, it was not her blue eyes, it was not her as I knew her, it was just ashes of a body of a life that had a calling and lived it out to the best she knew how. Death has been so real to me this past year; it's shaped some of my thinking in an amazing way. That might sound weird but its true. I have come to see things and life from a different perspective. You know when we were on the boat heading out and looking back at Cape Town, I saw the city from a different view, which I had not seen for a long time. Being out on the sea gave me a different vision of the city; just the way death has given me a different vision of this life that we live. During the day I was constantly reminded of the scripture Paul talks about when he says for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. .
I saw how death truly is a reality, how a life that once breathed to live for Christ was actually with Christ, and how my mom was celebrating with Christ, and looking down inspiring me to live out my life for Christ. Releasing me fully into this calling that is calling. Death is a strange thing and we might not like it, we find it hard to talk about, and we seldom know what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. Relooking at death I have found there is life. No wonder God calls us to die to our selfish ways and live for him. What we need to see is that dying to self releases life and a calling which we might have been given a glimpse of but not the full picture, and once we die to self God will show us a different view of our lives, this world and what He has called us to. Therefore this allows us to walk in the fullness of Christ and what He is calling us to, it's a rough process but it's a glorious one. Reflecting Christ's life through our death.
So yes our bodies eventually die and we either go down in the ground or get sprinkled across some part of this earth, but truly that's not who we are or what we are living for. We live to reflect Christ and fulfill all He has called us to. My mom's smile and blue eyes will always be remembered, and still lives in the lives she smiled at and in me, I have her eyes and her smile and will always know she lived, just like we have Christ in us and our calling is to reflect Christ, so we will be remembered by our reflection of Christ in us.
We have a calling that is calling, and that calling is Christ and His love. The rest of what we do will be a reflection of that and we need to be running in that reflection, whether that means giving up everything we have, and dying to the things of this world, we need to do it, God is wanting us to see His vision, but not from our eyes but His!
Your calling is calling.....
