Incarnations

 

                                                           painting by Freydoon Rassouli

I was sitting here thinking the other day, while the television was paused.  My photo gallery from Amazon began to scroll across the screen.  I looked at the backgrounds instead of just the people in the photos as each rolled by.  I was amazed at how often the decor of our home changed through the years, how different our yard looked in various stages, how much I'd changed myself in hair color, facial features, clothing styles, hairstyles, etc.

Later I was watching a vlogger who said, "If I could be reincarnated, I'd like to come back as...."  

And that's when it hit me.  Every season in life, every change of decor in our home, every job, every relationship, every life stage is essentially a form of reincarnation, a new life. We live a series of lives in a lifetime.  

Think about it.  You began as an infant, then toddler, a juvenile, a teen, a young adult.  A young married, perhaps a divorcee, a widow, even one who might have found a second love following widowhood.  

In careers, I've been a bookkeeper, a secretary, a medical billing clerk, a social services director, a salesperson, a phlebotomist, an office manager, stay at home mom, stay at home wife.  How many 'lives' have you lived in your lifetime?

I've been heavier, and lighter.  I've been chronically ill and injured and I've been healthy.  Every single variation of self was, in a way, a different version, different form of life, creating who I would become in my future. 

And my home has reflected both our financial status and taste changes.  Each reflected a different life stage, a different point of view and said something about my home, expressed a new facet of my personality.

I find it amusing, in looking back, that when I was seeking truth and God as a teen, I came around to my personal beliefs and faith through the study of reincarnation.  The idea of living different lifetimes over centuries appealed to me. However, I came to believe in one God, and that we are given one life.  And honestly that is quite enough!

But I've come to realize that those incarnations I once found so appealing are truly all to be held in one life.  We do not come into this world as one thing and stay that our whole lives through.  We mature.  We learn to walk in faith.  We learn to overcome.  We learn to grieve and to celebrate.  We suffer.  We heal.  We learn to hold gratitude as the highest form of praise even in the worst days of our lives.  

Given all of that thinking, I'd say that yes, indeed.  One life is plenty to live, especially when it holds so many variations of lives in its grip!