Sometimes there comes a moment that tells you a particular thing has changed and will never be the same again. It might be that day when you realize that your daughter is no longer a little girl. The sure signs of adolescence take hold, you can’t pretend you haven’t noticed and it’s inevitable, despite the longing you have for it not to happen: she will become a woman.

It might be the first time you notice that break in your thirteen-year-old son’s voice, that sudden switch from bass to falsetto, and you know that soon he’ll be shaving and behaving like a teenager. There is both hope and sadness, satisfaction and fear, knowing the nearness of adulthood brings its own pains and pleasures.

There are those darker moments, too, when you see clear through the façade of your own self-deceit and know that the person you love does not love you, at least not in the way that holds things together, the way that brings people closer as time goes on. In a similar but less bitter way, you wake up one day and know that the gnawing in your gut that starts as soon as you open your eyes means its time to start looking for another job.

In a brighter way, there are also those moments when you look at each other across the room and smile, knowing in your deepest heart that you never would have guessed that two people could still like each other this much after this many years. There are the moments when you remember that even if you haven’t spoken to your friends from grad school in three years, you could pick up the phone right now and call and it would seem like you hadn’t missed a beat. There are the moments when you finish some task at work, turn away at the ending of a chance encounter and you know, really know, that this is why God has put you here, right where you are. Or, it’s the moment when you think about all you gave up so you could be close to your family or even home school your children. You think of all the things you can’t afford, you can’t do and your small child looks up at you and you know that it was all worth it; it was the best possible choice you could have made.

And maybe you take all of those moments, the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain, the grief and the joy, and you know that every single one of them has brought you to this place, made you this person, given you this life. And when you can think of all that, smile sincerely to the very core of your soul and nod your silent praise to the Giver of Moments, the Giver of Life, that may be your finest moment.

H. Arnett
5/7/14