If Life Were Easy...

It has officially begun!! The packing, that is! I was a lot more excited about it this morning. Now, having packed 21 boxes worth of books, more books, craft supplies, games, stuffed toys, and a few more books, I’m beginning to wonder if a week is enough time to pack up everything in this house. Dave is in Detroit this week on a mission trip with our youth. My mission this week is to get everything in our house in a box. One thing is for sure—I need more boxes.

I think my excitement began to wane just a bit mid-day when I realized this task is going to require a lot more time and energy and effort than I thought. In other words, I had hoped it would be easier. I think that I often hope for LIFE to be easier. But I don’t know if it ever is, or if it is ever supposed to be that way. I think I just want life to be easy. You know, the life where you pack lots of boxes and you can actually see a difference. (My house looks like I haven’t moved a thing yet.) The life where your car doesn’t die right after you get gas and require that you get a stranger to jump it for you. (Yep, that happened today too.) The kind of life where your kids go to bed without a fight. The life where you never have headaches. The life where your house sells the day you put the sign in the yard and your support comes in without having to make a single phone call.

Come to think of it…maybe I don’t wish life was that way. If it was, I probably would have missed the fourteen trips I took down memory lane while packing those boxes today. I would have missed the blessing of the lady who was right there at just the right moment to jump my car…and how perfect that it happened at the gas station where lots of cars come by all the time! I would have missed the wiggles and hugs and time with my kids. I would have missed Myah saying, “Mommy, you want me to kiss your head?” I would have missed the journey of trusting and waiting for God to provide. I would have missed the many blessed conversations and countless words of encouragement every time we talk to people about supporting us.

You know, it’s like the Bible story I read to the kids tonight about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I might have been easier if there was never a king who made crazy laws about bowing down to a statue and then throwing people into a fire if they didn’t. Or it might have been easier if those three guys had just bowed down. But they would have missed God being with them in the fire. They would have missed the power of obeying the one true God. They would have missed the exhilaration of God doing more than they could ask or imagine. What I really hope for is faith like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had. I want to live life, following God all-out and especially when it’s hard. So, what does that mean for you today? What does it look like to embrace the “hardness” of life with a faith in the God who is even stronger? For me, right now it means planning a Sunday School lesson even though it would be easier to go to bed!