I was talking with a couple friends of mine who, like me, have reached the plus side of mid-life.  They’ve been through some stuff, these gals.  These are seasoned, lovely women who have put their all into raising their kids, doing what was right, showing up, and making do.  They have run the gamut between surviving and thriving, and back again. 

They know how to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.  And they do it with grace.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how life doesn’t end with our last breath.  It goes on in what we’ve planted here on earth.  It goes forth in what we’ve taught our kids, the good we have done, the way we helped when perhaps we didn’t even know we were.  The stories others will tell of us, will be our legacy.  

It’s amazing, isn’t it?  We get to a place in life and we look around and say, “How in the world did I get here?”  Things aren’t what we imagined they would be.  There are still struggles. There are still things we had long-hoped would be behind us, wounds that still seep from time to time.  We have dreams we dare not put away because doing so would mean we have given up.  “Giving up,” is not a part of our vocabulary.

None of this is to say that life isn’t good.  It is.  We’re blessed.

The point of this, as my friends and I were sharing, is in understanding the profundity of consequences.  It’s about the forks in the road, the decisions that we made or were made for us, that caused a sequence of events to fall like dominoes.  We went right instead of left.  We said yes instead of no.  We stuck to our guns or gave in.  All of them — all of them — shaped what happened next. 

All too casually, life altering decisions are made that affect generations.  

There is an adage that I am fond of saying that says it best. “You can’t pick up one end of the stick without picking up the other.”  Good or bad, everything we do has a consequence that will speak to our character, to our faithfulness, to what beats our hearts. 

Gratefully, when we choose in error, when we make mistakes, when we hurt those we love, God is the fulcrum that balances how the other end of the stick lands.  He’s a God who likes to see ways mended, hurts healed, good come from bad.  He’s a God of second chances and peace and restoration. 

We cannot stop the consequences that must come like a caboose following a train.  But we can change our hearts.  We can take a different track.  We can redirect our energies, our forgiveness, our looking backwards, and plan for and envision the next stop.

We can create new seasons even when if feels as though we are surrounded by the rubble of old ones. 

I was talking with a family member, a pastor, who often reminds me of the power of prayer and the miracles that come when one does not relent in speaking life into dead situations.  When both ends of the stick have not only long been picked up, but also broken off and cast aside.

It’s never too late for dry bones to come to life. 

What I am trying to convey, is simple really.  We forget sometimes, that as long as there is breath, there is life.  That God is always at work.  That we make wrong turns and pick up sticks we never should have handled.  We are caused to live out the burdens of other people’s choices.  We get beaten down by the heaviness that at times will not relent.

But there is always hope. 

Don’t give in to listing all the reasons your faith is wearing thin.  Reignite the fire within you to believe for the impossible.  See past your present circumstances and imagine the possibilities of a new tomorrow.  Don’t rest on your yesterdays, but keep moving forward. 

I know it’s hard sometimes to see what God is doing.  But He is doing… He’s always doing. 

One stick laid across the other forms a Cross.

Remember that when you question if you are loved.

Look to it when you need a resurrection to help you believe for something new.

Don’t. Give. Up.

Everything we do has a consequence.