What Is

"--- and they took the road that would lead them back---" Ruth 1:7 NLT

How often we turn our eyes, our hearts to what is behind. We long to take the road that takes us back to days, sublime, hours dancing with laughter. We are like the new mother who has forgotten the travails for the sake of joy within arm's reach.
In these hours of grief, I would gladly journey back to days sunny with my daughter's presence, overflowing with her adamant challenges to our choices, to life itself and brim-full of her hard work and head-reared-back-laughter.
Given the choice, I would traverse the alleys of dreams fulfilled and children chasing under foot. Wouldn't you? The Land of Was often beckons.
"--- and they took the road that would lead them back---" Ruth 1:7 NLT
Here, Naomi seeks to return to that place that Was:
Was filled with husband, dear.
Was flowing with children, tummies filled.
Was home in days long gone.
In my own efforts to take the road back to dream house and children, now dead, I have discovered that the Land of Was, is gone. To believe that I can live in Yesterday, is an illusion. It is a dream, lost and empty.
I know that Naomi did not really travel back, but journeyed forward, to What Is. Only in What Is, can grace be found with peace. It is in Today, that I can weep and pray and seek, trusting the Keeper of all my Yesterdays.
What Is, for Naomi, was a redeemer for her family and a grandfather for King David. (Ruth 4:14)
My own Redeemer comes only as I choose to live in these What Is days. To sit here in the quiet of Today and linger, long, with Him who is Present.