I met God in the bathroom at Costco last week.  I wasn’t expecting to.  But Saint James had the kids, and I walked in, unhurried and not being screamed at or talked to.  Silence.  In the bathroom.

He was there.

If I had trusted public restrooms more, I might have taken off my shoes as I recognized this holy ground.  It was the first time in a long time I could remember hearing the sound of silence, and I walked slowly and mindfully out of the restroom to find my family.  I cried.

I think Saint James thought I was having some kind of mental breakdown during my three minutes away.  But that kind of silence doesn’t happen in my day to day.

Seasons.

These moments, these hardships– they’re passing.  The constant motion.  The stresses.  The joblessness, the fighting.  Facing uncertainty and anxiety in changing jobs, or moving, or getting pregnant.  Disease.  Sleepless nights.  Decisions on schools and nursing homes, wedding venues and hospitals.  Begging God in prayer.  Colic and bedwetting, tired mommas.   It’s all passing.

And those beautiful moments?  They’re passing too.  First kisses, first smiles.  The 8,047th  and the 159,432nd time kissing your spouse, rocking your tired baby, and enjoying the sunshine on a car ride to work.  Belting songs you don’t know the words to.  Watching a good movie in the rain with a huge bucket of popcorn.  The last time seeing a friend with heart ties.  It’s all passing.

We must honor the now.  We must appreciate the beauty:  the smiles and the laughter, the pain and the terror.  The heart.  Aching.  The moments.  Of being absolutely alive.

It means we’re here.

It means there’s purpose.  There’s plan.  But all of it is going so quickly.  So, so quickly we might miss it if we’re not mindful.

In his poem “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot recognizes the power of the moments.

“Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are.”

Amen.