~soon enough~

I came across a picture yesterday that made me feel a bit melancholy.  Has that ever happened to you?  It's a strange kind of feeling, that melancholy sensation, and for the life of me I really can't tell you why the image below made me feel that way.

~nearing the top of the Grand Mesa in Mesa County, Colorado~

It was taken in June of 2013 when Mike and I had been married for less than a month.  I was in the initial throes of my homesickness when one afternoon we took a drive to the top of the Grand Mesa, not all that far from our home in Montrose, Colorado.  I'm sure that Mike probably suggested it, thinking that seeing some of the beautiful mountain scenery would help to take my mind off of my loneliness for my old home in Kansas as well as see some of the beauty that my new home in the Rocky Mountains had to offer.  

As we neared the top of the Grand Mesa, we came across patches of snow that had not yet melted from the winter months.  Mike pulled over so I could get out and take a closer look.  I remember thinking how weird it was to be able to walk into snow right smack dab in the middle of summer!  You couldn't do that on a June day in south central Kansas, that's for sure.

We went on to the very top of the Grand Mesa and paused for a while to get out and look at the gorgeous view that lay below us.  It reminded me of the topographical map of the United States that always hung in our social studies classroom back at Haven Grade School.  My old social studies teacher from the 7th and 8th grade, Mr. Rex McMurray, would have marveled to see it in person as well.  

The Grand Mesa is the world's largest flat top mountain with an area of about 500 sq. miles.

So many things have happened to me in the 7 years that have passed between when those two photos were taken to where I am today in Kay County, Oklahoma.  Mike and I have moved twice and I have taught in 4 different school districts.  My sister and brother-in-law have both passed away, 2 new daughter-in-laws and 3 new grandchildren have been added into our family.  I've retired from teaching and the world is now trying to survive a pandemic.  For sure, nothing on earth has remained the same.  On that day atop the Grand Mesa I didn't even dream about what would happen to me in the future.  Time actually kind of stood still up there as I took in the great creation that was before me.  I slowed to a stop for a brief moment in my life and gave thanks for the blessing of seeing the valley below.

My two years in Colorado were a time of refinement for me as God laid me upon his mighty anvil on a regular basis and pounded away.  And for the record, it didn't always feel too good. He was shaping me into the person that I was destined to become and the reshaping didn't stop there.  I went through times of refinement along the Red River when we lived in Burkburnett, Texas during that four year period of time.  I find myself on the anvil here in Kay County as I try to figure out what to do with my life post-retirement.  It has seemed that what God has planned out for my life involves being upon the anvil on a pretty regular basis as of late.  

I still have no idea why the image of me standing in the snow provoked a feeling of pensive sadness.  It came and went about as quickly as it began.  Perhaps it was because of the changes that I have gone through in the times that followed that day.  Yet the changes haven't been all bad and mostly they have been wonderful ones.  More than likely it might have been the realization of how fast those 7 years have gone by, time that we will never get back again.  Who knows?

No one ever tells you that the older you get, the faster time goes by.  
You find that out on your own, soon enough.