MARRIAGE & MOVING & SHINGLES…OH MY!
Blog Post #62
Marriage and Moving and Shingles, Oh, My! What do these things have in common? Here’s what...they represent a good bit of my summer!
Wait! Did I say summer? What summer? Have we started summer? I’m STILL waiting to do all those summer-esk things I crave the other three seasons of the year. But life “happens” and we respond as best we can. The exciting part is that we can never be too sure what those “happenings” will actually be. Some of them are fun, others, not so much...some are expected, others surprise us...some challenge us and some bore us. And at the end of the day, I guess one thing that can be said about life, you never know for sure what each day’s going to bring, so get comfortable with expecting the unexpected!
I, for example, didn’t expect to get shingles and spend most of my summer in sheer misery. Irregardless, I knew I could either accept my malady and make the best of it by offering it up (redemptive suffering, which I’m a fan of), or I could moan and groan and gripe and growl. It was totally my choice in terms of how to deal with this life “happening.” Shingles, by the way, fits in the “unexpected” category. But other summer happenings played out differently, as in the case of our oldest daughter, Katie, getting engaged. That fits in the “expected” category. (Jon and Katie have been dating for over three years and we suspected that they would be moving in the marriage direction.) As for the moving of children, well, it actually fits into both categories...we expected to move one, but not the other.
As the adage goes, one thing we can be certain of is change. What in your life has changed in the last week? Month? Year?
But if you happen to be one of those “status quo” kind of folks, or someone who just likes things to stay the way they’ve always been...you know, slow, steady, still and SAME...maybe it’ll be comforting for you to know that there is one STABLE and SOLID and SURE thing to cling to as you navigate life, and that would be our good and gracious Lord!
Yep! That Savior of ours, He’s always going to be hanging around...always going to want to be our best friend...always going to give good advice...always going to have time to talk...and to listen...always going to hope that we’ll lean on Him in our unpredictable, unplanned, and unprecedented times...always going to love us no matter what. And not just love us, but be wildly, crazy in love with us. Happy sigh!
So, as life moves on for all of us, and it will, do yourself a favor, and accept the mystery, the surprises, even the unwelcome events and situations...because chances are they are the very thing that will most likely sanctify you. After all, isn’t it true that the best use of any challenge or unexpected situation is to embrace it as a means of obtaining sanctification and discerning how it might actually bring out the best in us? Just something to think about while you wait for the next life “happening.” I just pray, for your sake, that it “ain’t” shingles!
