525,600 minutes

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

How do you measure a year of life?

I love this song from RENT. I’ve never seen the movie, but I love this song. It screams “Live your Life and cherish THOSE you love, not the ‘stuff’ you love!”

Stuff is just stuff. It’s generic, it’s bulky, it is nondescript. Stuff is just anything, nothing really important, that fills the voids, the holes, the insecurities of our lives. Why spend our time, our precious minutes given to us in this world on stuff? Why stuff our time, our schedules with nondescript things that will have no impact or enhance our personal lives and relationships?

“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” ~ James 4:14

So why waste the most precious gift given to us – our lives, which translates into time – on stuff – that just fills the empty holes?

I’m told I’m a busy person. It drives my family crazy sometimes. “A fly by the seat of my pants” kinda gal. Schedules can drive me nuts, but without them I go nuts because I’m constantly on the go. Constantly doing something and I have a hard time saying no. But, I do carefully choose what I spend my time on. It’s not random nor is it without purpose…

And here is why…

Way over Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes ago, God started cleaning house on me. Some days I feel my life is a written script of 'WHAT NOT TO DO'... In the last year, I’ve lost most material possessions that I used to cherish. I got to the point where I was beyond the point of worry, grasping to hold on to the temporal things of this earth. The only ‘thing to do’ was trust in my Lord to meet my needs.

So, I took a leap of faith and dove right in…

He met my needs, but not exactly how I expected or wanted at the time. He met my needs by repossessing my ‘dream’ car I had worked many years to payoff, only to put it up for collateral on a dream home I had always wanted, in order to appear I had ‘arrived’ and lived in a big girl house. I played the role of the happy, successful wife and mother well… but it was just STUFF and God had even bigger STUFF in store for me.

But the only way for me to see what he had in store for me was to strip me from the stuff I had been placing so much value in. It was a painful process, but once I got there, I found peace… a peace that can only come from a divine spirit. And I quickly realized that there are so many other things that I should be focused on, like focusing on HIM and relationships of those people He so divinely placed in my life.

Yes, I believe everything happens for a reason and paths do not cross by fate, but by divine purpose

So, now I try to listen more, talk less. When I say I will pray for others, I mean it. I don’t volunteer or offer my precious time unless I see a way it can glorify my Lord. I’m not stingy with the only free resource God has given me. Time. So, I try to give more and take less, love more and gripe less, be available for my family more and spend my time doing things I love, not dread for the sake of filling empty holes. In exchange I focus more on filling up empty hearts full of love. Build up instead of tear down, lift up instead of step on for personal gain. Plainly do the right thing.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ~ Matthew 22: 37 – 39

So although I tease that it is ‘ALL ABOUT ME’… it really isn’t. But shhh… let’s just keep that between us, ok?