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Follow Me on PinterestI recently heard someone say that how we deal with change and the curve balls life throws at us says more about our character than anything else does. I cringed, because I’m really bad at handling those changes and curve balls.
I used to think I really, really had strong faith and that I would be able to trust God through thick or thin.
Now I realize that I’m like the Apostle Peter, declaring boldly that I would die for the Lord, but denying Him three times just a few hours later.
God keeps bringing me back to the same topic over the last year or so: “Relax and enjoy the ride. I’ve got this”
Instead, I feel like I’m looking into a mirror reflecting back on me just how “control freaky” I really am.
For a good long while, there was that promise I often heard (and believed): “God just has something better for ya’ll!”
Maybe He does. Maybe He doesn’t (by my definition, not His, of course).
I had been looking up at that promise of “when I get through this then…” or “there’s some good that will come out of this…” or even looking for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I had been thinking of and focusing on the day when the trial was over.
This works well for the short term, but I’ve become convinced that it’s still not the right focus.
I started to realize this while driving my son down to Tennessee for his summer job. We’ve not had a family vacation for a decade, and that was just a weekend trip a few hours away. Prior to marriage, I lived and traveled all over Europe and parts of the near east. As a world-traveler and backpacker extraordinaire, I know that half the fun is the journey not the destination.
Dear husband didn’t see it that way. His eyes were on the prize: get to murfreesburo! On the other hand, I was noticing all of the little stops along the way that we were just flying past, and missing out on! On the next drive down, to fetch my son, my husband had to work, so I took my oldest daughter with me instead. It took significantly longer to get there, but the trip was more enjoyable.
I realized that though life in the last 12 years or so, with all of these crazy challenges, particularly of the financial sort, were not at all fun, I was going to miss life if I sat around with my arms folded, pouting, until the chapter ended.
Embrace the journey, potholes, curves, and roadblocks included!
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I have a hard time when people say, “It will get better!” because I know from living overseas that for some Christians life is truly a struggle in certain ways (financially, politically, bad families, etc.) and that their circumstances don’t always change. But they are joyful in the midst of it.
I was thinking of the importance of embracing life where you’re at recently when I realized how focused I was on just getting through my husband’s law school years, because the schedule is so intense and finances are so tight. But then I realized that at the end of it, our sons will have gone from 3, 1, and 5 months, to 6, 4, and 3 years old. Those are such special years, and I don’t want to waste them fretting all the time about the hard things.
Oh, amen! I have also lived overseas, and I know that our struggles here are different than struggles overseas, especially for Christians. We really do have it better than any one else in so many ways, but we don’t appreciate it, I think. Or maybe we don’t know enough to appreciate it!
When this “season of life” is past and we’ve “gotten through it” my kids will likely be adults, at least some of them. My oldest is 19, and this is my son’s senior year. Time’s a wasting!