Going for the Participation Award!

Sometimes Mondays come with a whole lot to think about. This is one of those Mondays.
I spent the weekend on a women's retreat from our new church - so lots of new faces and names and stories. I agreed to step into a new area of ministry, unknown and vague, but step I did. Then last night I met our friends new daughters from Ethiopia and got to eat dinner with living dreams-come-true. Mike is in Wisconsin doing a presentation this morning and in the next few weeks projects will be won, or lost, and all that will affect where Mike spends a lot of time in the near future. Robert is a newlywed, Ryan's wedding is around the corner and Lizzy finds out this month if she'll be in S. Korea, Russia or Alabama this summer. And then there's my writing. A friend asked last night if it was hard to wait on hearing something from a publisher.
Wait? Doesn't feel much like I'm waiting, feels more like I'm barely hanging on to a horse at a full gallop. This. This moment is so full, I can't imagine anything more.
Sure, a step forward means a dream, a desire is closer. But it also means something behind me grows more faint, less real. I can't hold onto the past and also reach for the future. I know that, I know that, but moving from just knowing it and fully living it requires a shift, a move and I want to acknowledge that shift and make it intentionally.
Time advances, things change whether I want them to or not, but it happening without my awareness is a choice. I choose to be aware, to pay attention. Like watching the February ground for daffodil leaves pushing the dirt aside or knowing the day the willow branches take on that first tinge of green. I choose to participate in creation - Spring's - and my own.