esperanza: {choose}

It’s 9:45 at night and the power just went out and I have a list a mile long of things I wanted to accomplish tonight. But if there is anything that I feel like I’m learning these days, it’s that I just need to slow down and soak up the goodness in each moment as it comes. Because almost every single one is full of beauty if I would just open my eyes to it.

It’s been raining a lot around here lately, and by raining I mean that the skies have been opening up and pouring out water for hours. And here that pretty much means that you are just going to stay exactly where you are at until the rain ceases. Because most people don't want to get on a motorcycle if it means being drenched in .2 seconds. So we stay put and we wait it out and we choose. We choose whether to appreciate or to complain or to wish it would just stop long enough to get home. We choose whether to find the good or only see the negative and we choose whether or not we are going to change our perspective.

Because even though the rain can sometimes be inconvenient or losing power at night when I have a lot to do wouldn’t be my preference, there is so much good in those moments. And the Lord uses them to remind me that I’m not the one in control here and sometimes I just need to appreciate the goodness and gifts that He is giving me. So some days that might mean being trapped at school and grading papers so I don’t have to do it later that night and sometimes it might mean getting stuck on the balcony at the orphanage with one special kid and singing old songs and eating candy until the rain let up.

But for tonight I think it means that I’m going to take my candles and make some tea and read a book, thankful that I have been given these moments to just be and not worry about my mile long checklist.

Because I’ve only got one wild and precious life and I don’t want to waste time wishing there was power when I could be reading by candlelight.

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