This past few weeks has been one continuous round of wild rides. Everything from family surgery to being in charge of fundraisers (that’s plural, fundraiserz) to politics to a book releasing to meetings-a-go-go to missionary discussions to two extremely exciting new opportunities to a busted pipe in a field to mission papers to an Eagle project and its accompanying papers (believe me, those are plural) to … you name it, it’s been on our calendar.
Except pulling weeds. That hasn’t been on our calendar. (Hey, this is Arizona, we have weeds year-round.)
Some seasons are just like that.
And to top it all off, I’m on a diet. WHY must we diet? Why can’t we just burn calories by experiencing stress? Shouldn’t worrying be a form of physical exercise? I mean, I know it wears me out. Why do I also have to subsist on Wheat Thins (not a bad thing, since they’re DELICIOUS, as long as they are the name brand, not the store brand) and whatever “they” define as a “handful” of almonds. Believe me, it’s possible to get a lot of almonds in my hand when I’m feeling like I’m starving.
Sigh.
However, I was thinking about something my father-in-law said the other night about signing up for this life. “I didn’t sign up for ease. I signed up for experience. And believe you me, I am getting it. In spades.”
There aren’t any of these experiences hitting us this past month or so I’d trade. I want them all. Even the less-pleasant ones, I can look back on with fondness, eventually, and with gratitude–either for what I learned, or simply that with God’s help we survived.
Right now I’m looking at this particular week with a boatload of gratitude. A whole heckuva lot of friends and family and kind people came to my support for the release of my most recent book, and I just felt showered with all the kindness and encouragement. I know I’m not some magically wonderful writer, and that maybe only one or two of my books out of a dozen may be worth reading. I hope I’m improving–and I just feel thankful to everyone who has encouraged me to keep trying along the way. I wish I could share my box of Wheat Thins with all of you.
Thank you.
