365 days isn't so long ago

Here is an excerpt from my journal dated April 16, 2006. I sat on this beach and wrote it, Easter day. At the time this entry seemed like a small lesson learned along the way, but has turned out to be one of the trip's biggest themes for me.

"When we were sitting on the deserted, grassy hill in that park in Athens, watching the Pantheon lit up at sunset, I thought, 'This is it. Maybe my last sunset over Athens, Greece, EVER.' I wanted to eat it up for safekeeping, knowing it was my only one. What if I never returned? As I was stunned at the beauty of what I was seeing, a quick slideshow ran through my mind of all the incredible things I had seen in the last 3.5 months. I realized it was okay to just enjoy the moment. Maybe I will never see the sun set over Athens again, but then I will be somewhere else seeing a different incredible thing. Life is full of great things, and this trip is teaching me how to just use them, enjoy them, relax.

When I was a little girl, if I had only one puffy, glitter, pony sticker, I would save it until it discolored and wouldn't even stick anymore, afraid to use up my only one. I think I am getting over that now. I think I am learning how to enjoy. How to trust that God will never cease to impress me no matter how great the place I am in now, the perfect circumstances at that place, or how puffy the sticker is."

The older I get, the better life gets. Things are never perfect, I am dissapointed and I constantly wish for more justice in the world, but in spite of all that I see a pattern of faithfulness. Great things are around me all the time and there is no reason to hold onto them so tightly. I have this tendancy to grip onto people and situations that I like, not wanting things to change or to have to start over. I used to cry at the end of every vacation, nurse my favorite bottle of lotion or refuse to accept the fact that people grow away from me. The trip was a constant stream of good that taught me that more good was probably on the way. There will be another vacation, another bottle of lotion and a new friend. Maybe even a better one. And if there won't be, isn't it better that I fully enjoy what I have while I have it? I think so. What good is your best sticker, when it is too old to stick anymore?