Do You Wait To Live?

“My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” Psalm 31:10 

  

  I find myself guilty lately of “waiting to live.” Certain times of the year are worse for me, and other times are generally better, and I often get into a habit of thinking, in another two weeks I will feel better or surely in another month I will be able to do more. I suspect you may do the same on occasion. 

  The problem comes from those better days not arriving. A month later I find myself feeling just as lousy as the previous month. There is nothing wrong with being optimistic and having “great expectations,” but we can set ourselves up for discouragement when the “better time” has not arrived when expected. 

  The real challenge is living in the here and now when things are rather lousy. 

  Many of us have a variety of health issues to juggle. We may improve slightly in one area, only to be knocked down in another area. We may also find ourselves weighed down by a bad flare up of one symptom or one aspect of our disease that is enough to bring down our overall health situation. 

  We can get so focused on the “better times ahead” that we stop living, stop planning, and even stop trying to find meaningful ways to live today. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to look back at wasted days that were spent in mere expectation of the times ahead. We may not be able to do much on the very difficult, the very hard and challenging days of our illness, but we should focus on what we can do today, and not waste it merely hoping for a better day tomorrow. 

  Hope is a good thing, as is optimism, we will need these in our life, but let us not spend too much time merely being hopeful about tomorrow. Let us be as productive as we can be today. Whether it is praying for someone, offering kindness, an encouraging phone call, anything within our ability to do today. 

  Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to be optimistic about tomorrow, but let us never waste today being merely optimistic about tomorrow. Amen.