Between how life was and how we wish life can be

I’m captivated by moments. Like waking and not wanting to be awake… or being reminded how life was, connected with pangs of regret or… equally, how life isn’t quite what we thought it would be… yet.

… YET … is such an important word;
it holds hope pregnant on the heart.

Many of us have known that time between how life was and how we wish it would be. Many of us were there for literally years. And many of us are there now.

In all truth, most if not all of us are on that journey between a reality that was—perhaps it was very beautiful, because we’ve forgotten the ugly parts—and the ‘reality’ we hope for.

And there are also many who genuinely feel they’ve never had that life they wish they still had. Many strive for a life, a healing, they’ve never had. There is an authentic ailing for that which has never been a reality, and yet (that word again!) that hope cannot be let go of.

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Yes, there is pain. There is more in these in-between time experiences than we can readily stomach on occasion. It does overwhelm us. It does cause us to lose hope and wonder about God. And yet, once we’re through it, we realise what occurred, and even as we’re going through it something makes us suspect there’s something being gained ahead.

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There is something tantalising with hope. It’s a now-but-not-yet thing; now, because we’re impelled forward toward to what we hope for; but not yet, because it hasn’t yet become a reality.

So, what do we do in the meantime…?

This is where the crunch is. We’re all living in the meantime, especially as we consider our own lives when someone might look on and quietly envy what we have that they don’t. We’re all living in the meantime, for such a time as the present time, where hope is imbued on a vision that is always ‘over there’ somewhere. We’re all living in the meantime, and we need to grasp this if joy is to overwhelm us, because of gratitude, because we recognise that now—even though it isn’t everything we hope for—is what we have. We’re all living in the meantime, all the time.

We’re living in the existential chasm… the gap between what has been and what’s to come.

We’re living between the past and the future, even if the past looms large to depress us, and the future looms just as large to make us anxious.

But the past and the present are not regular foes like the present often appears to be.

The present moment must be managed, or it makes of future moments—as we see them from here—ultimately regretful moments of past.

What does all this mean?

The present—for it to encompass joy—must be indwelt with hope. And that’s the experience of peace, right there. To accept one’s present is to draw hope into the moment, to live there, content with what we have, all that we are, and all that we’re doing and have done.

The present must trust that the future will be good and that all in the past may be resolved and reconciled.

All of what is the good life is done in the present. It cannot be done in the past, for those days are gone, and it cannot be done in the future, for those days are not here yet.

It’s the present that invites us into the opportunity of acceptance.

The idea of acceptance breeds the possibility of positivity; for thought of all there is, all one has, all one is, and all that could be.

All is as it presently is, and the present as it is cannot be changed, but it can be accepted, and start of hope resides there, and peace abides, and at last, joy guides.

Photo by Alex Alvarez on Unsplash