Focus

Again it is Sunday, but I am here, and I am recovering from a 16-hour flight from the Middle East. I went to sleep at 4 p.m. yesterday then woke at one o'clock a.m. and made popcorn. The night before that, I woke at 4 a.m. and made stew. I am simply off.

The previous Saturday I was in a hotel next to the Sea of Galilee in Jerusalem, and I wrote a reflection by hand in my journal. I don't know why, and I needn't figure this out right this second, but that reflection was also about ingredients.

As is this one. Brent and I helped Kyle and Destiny move into their new home yesterday. Clothes, cleansers, books, appliances, paperwork, toys, bedding all filled the many boxes we carried in from the moving van. It was a bit much to fathom all the work ahead for this family as they find places for all their stuff. Any help I offered didn't seem to make much of a dent to lessen the workload.

But I showed up, as did my husband, Brent, Zac and Megan, Karis and Andrew, Ryan and Kelley, James, and baby Everly. At one point the whole gang was there. I didn't want to gather everyone for a photo opportunity, as it seemed too much effort. And as it stands, we will be all of us together much more now. While I was in Israel, Andrew, Karis and James moved back to California from Texas, and Kyle, Destiny, Emmett, Sammy and Calvin the day after I arrived home moved from San Diego, 110 miles away, to Fontana, 15 miles away from our home. My family is all nearby now.

When I woke at one o'clock this morning, I got a picture in my head of what it's like to struggle with attention problems. The scene I envisioned is a pharmacist with rows and rows of medications behind him. He is in a photograph. He is front and center but out of focus, fuzzy, while every detail on the shelves behind him is clear. This illustrates what it's like to be in my mind. I tend to miss what is right in front of me because I am overwhelmed with the details surrounding what is in front of me.

Even yesterday, I was thinking about the boxes, the ingredients within them, when what was really the center of it all is, my family is back. Cousins are chasing each other, grown children are encouraging each other and laughing, sharing ideas and experiences. Brent is holding two-month-old Everly, and his gaze catches mine amidst the chaos and through the grandchildren darting back and forth between us. We smile briefly but deeply at each other, unable to believe how rich we really are. For a moment, it's all clear.

I'm glad I had today to look again on yesterday and shift my focus a bit. I wouldn't want to miss it for anything, or a million tiny things.