My husband has always balked at people who say they are "finding themselves". This is especially funny in my house, since I am a person who is always looking. "Who am I?" sounds frighteningly similar to "where the heck did I put those keys...?" It is a daily exercise of hide and seek, of exploration and discovery. My husband always says that "who you are" is a verb. It is ever moving, ever changing. You can take a snap shot now and then -- an action photo, but you can't capture more than a fraction, a fragment at any given point in time. I agree with this, even though I continue to indulge myself in the looking. At 41, I like the view from here. Changes in direction look less like wrong turns and more like detours. I like revisiting some of the places I've been -- knowing oh-so-much-more now, and knowing that later I'll know ever more than today. It's a good place.

For many, it is a common desire in relationship to Know and to Be Known. This is what I want for my relationship with my children, my parents, my husband, my friends, God. Wanting to know yourself is part of this cycle. Some people know you better than you know yourself, and others don't even come close. When someone you care about falls clearly in the latter category, you do everything in your power to make yourself known to them. Why don't they know you? Maybe the snapshot they have is a bad angle, a bad hair day, a bad moment in time. Wouldn't it be great if the only moments recorded were the really good ones: the 3 point basket at the buzzer to win the game, the selfless act of kindness that was divinely inspired. But these moments wouldn't reflect you anymore accurately than the selfish acts of anger, jealousy or frustration. No, it is the combination of all the moments that make you you. You here now. You are different than you were yesterday, and you will be different again tomorrow.

Life powers on in its busy pace. You leave your family at 18 to go to college. You change every day for the first time apart from that family. You come home expecting them to be just as they were when you left them, and they welcome you expecting the same 18 year old. Depending on the time, the circumstances, you might go 20 years with that same unrealistic expectation. You may remember your parents as those people who were at the time parenting a teen-ager. And they may remember you as the pin-head teenager you were. But they have moved on. And so have you. (I am personally grateful to have moved on. I hated being a teenager. I didn't like myself inside or out -- and I am much kinder to myself when I look backward. As a said, I much prefer the view from here.) Luckily, parents never really expect you to remain a teenager. They know you'll snap out of it. (good ones do, anyway). How sad for those families that get stuck there in a bad moment, a bad choice. Imprisoned by unforgiveness. Good thing God doesn't stop there. He sees the whole picture. The beginning and the end. Even the psalmist seems aware of this process as he asks the Lord, "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my rebellious ways: according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord." (psalm 25:7)

God, the ever good parent, remembers us according to his love. Often it is he alone who can do this. It is a painful revelation when you realize that many of the people you want to engage with don't really care to know who you really are. In some cases, they've already made up their minds. "you're either with us or against us". Maybe they just don't have the time. In all fairness, how many people can we truly know in this way? I have realized several times in my short life that the energy required of one friend can sometimes take away from the relationships I want to have with my children, spouse etc. Some people just require too much time. And frankly, time is something that we don't have enough of. None-the-less, it is painful to be rejected at this level -- especially by people with whom we have an investment of some level. I have found that at 41, I have accepted that life will not contain enough time to achieve this goal with everyone I had hoped to know. We will inevitably run out of time before we are done. (here on earth, at least) Ironically, Time is something that God never lacks.

At 41, it is amazing how differently I see myself at 16 than I saw myself then. I'm glad to have snapshots, good and bad. I remember believing myself to be awkward, fat, pimply -- but the photos reveal the beauty of youth -- fresh, clean, lovely (and if only I knew how fat fat could be...!!). All of that insecurity remarkably couldn't stop the bull headed belief that we knew more than our parents, that we were completely ready to face the world -- and even that quality (as irritating as it must have been for our parents) is so young and beautiful to me now. What crime do the young commit but to be young? And how valuable to me are those that have known me for all of that time -- those that actually remember the beginning, good and bad -- For the person you see today is an accumulation of change and movement over time. Look quickly, tomorrow we will be newer still.

Yes, I am in agreement with the writer who penned the phrase, "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be". Oh, Lord, it is my prayer that you would lead us on -- help us to never grow weary of knowing the people you put in our life, whether they choose to reciprocate or not. Perhaps in the accumulation of all of them we shall see more of You. Thank you for the many incredible people you have given me to love. I am so very blessed. May you fill me with what I need to love them as you love me. Thank you for the lovely view. It's a wonderful life.