For years, I spent so much time focused on the past that I failed to appreciate the small moments in my days. I missed the sunrises and sunsets, too busy wondering what I could have done better. I worried all the time about why I made the choices I did and the consequences that followed. By the time I focused on the present, my children were grown and I wondered how I had missed so much of their lives.
I also had the habit on vacations of thinking about where we were going next, what clothes to wear, and what I wanted to sample in foods. In doing so, I forgot to take pictures that would keep those memories and moments alive. I didn’t take the time to appreciate the intricacies of buildings and carvings. What’s next was my mantra! I returned home feeling as if I hadn’t experienced a vacation at all, and when people asked questions about places, I couldn’t tell them whether I enjoyed them or not, because my focus was on the next day or the next rendezvous.
So, now, I stay in the present, which lets me enjoy the beauty and goodness of each moment of each day. I struggle, yes, like all people, to stay in the moment. But, if you go to a garden, you learn to give each flower a glimpse and appreciate its beauty, rather than while you look at the roses, you are wondering what the daffodils will look like.
As I have gotten older, I work at keeping my mind on what is happening right now, because I have more life behind me than in front of me. I must savor every precious moment, so that when I am sitting watching a show with my husband, I am just focused on the joy that holding his hand gives me. When I lay next to him in bed, I love to put my ear next to his heart and hear it beat, so glad he is still alive and we have this moment together.
It’s unfortunate that it takes getting old to appreciate that focusing on right now is the most important. Yes, I think of the past sometimes fondly and not so fondly. I wonder what the future will bring as my husband and I are in our eighties and nineties (I am an optimist), so we eat right (sometimes) and exercise at least five days a week. However, it is the right now moments that keep me enthralled at the majesty and beauty of being alive at this particular moment.
Help from Heaven 
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