A beginning, a middle and an end

Whenever my friends declares that they have hit some sort of midlife crisis due to a birthday and the realization of getting older, my response is the same, "did you expect something else to happen."

As a person who lost a intimate relationship very young I had a very early introduction to endings and they have followed me ever since. There is always a little kernel in me that pauses to give consideration to the endings. There was a really beautiful letter that Abraham Lincoln sent to the daughter of a dear friend who died.

"Dear Fanny

It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend,
A. Lincoln"

It is an eloquent soul that can so be attuned to the how we understand and lament endings. 

Yet, this is a blog about a young family and it concerns beginnings. My children are very young. My son is 6, his brother is 3 and his sister is 1. Yet even now I am struck that they have changed. They understand the world a little bit better and are a little bit more capable of a little more than before. They are climbing mountains, so why am I at the bottom of their mountains wishing they were with me. When I look at pictures of them from a year or two ago, I am struck that the kid that sits before me isn't the same kid. From what I understand most parents lament this transition a little. So why are we as people so bad at living life. 

In a world where we are fed notions of progress not peace. We believe in getting rather than God. We consider usability before unity. We believe virtue positions itself in the future. We ache for a world we dont have and when we get it our world view steals are joy of the moment and we go on to wish for the world we had to come back. In short, we want what we had and what we might have in the future. In light of all this, I am inclined to ask myself the question, "did you expect something else to happen."

My lessons for this current stage of life is to treat emotions as markers on a path. Its not wrong for me to miss my kids infancy, but if I follow that emotion it will lead me to a place I dont want to go. It will steal my joy and steal me from my kids and wife who are the most important. So as I reflect on the beginning, the middle and the end I am reminded of Ecclesiastes

"You who are young, be happy while you are young,
    and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
    and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
    God will bring you into judgment.
10 So then, banish anxiety from your heart
    and cast off the troubles of your body"

Welcome to this day my dear reader. Welcome to this moment. Banish anxiety in the knowledge that it is God's desire for you and embrace the beauty of the million moments you have been given.