Weighed Down

Sometimes life seems so heavy.  Things start to weigh us down.  We can feel suffocated by the number of things we are trying to process, take care of, and deal with.  We can feel overwhelmed with the heaviness of walking through yet another trial, when we'd rather find a detour.

We stay busy here at the troops, considering we only have two kids living at home during the school year.  Even though the other kids aren't here every day, they're still part of our lives and on our hearts.  We're still trying to help, encourage, support - in whatever way we can!  On one end, that looks like providing child care for our daughter who is a nurse... on the other end, it's a phone conversation with our kids in SC once every couple of weeks.  The other kids fall somewhere in the middle.

In spite of what I envisioned, being older hasn't made life easier.  We still stress over finances and disagree on priorities.  We still schedule too many appointments and try to fit in too many things each week.  Work is still stressful for the Coach and I still haven't cleaned the grout in the bathroom tile (will I ever?).

There's never enough time or money... there's always more on the list than we could possibly accomplish.  Things continue to break and need fixing.  People continue to be difficult.  Relationships falter, hearts get broken.  We feel excluded, left out, slandered.  We're getting older, our stuff is wearing out, and no amount of healthy lifestyle is going to keep us from aging.  Some days we are eating whole foods and getting enough sleep and others... not so much. Nothing makes me feel quite as old as chasing a toddler around, again.  

It's easy to get discouraged when we look at our world...our hearts...our families.  Everything broken in so many ways and no hope of being whole this side of heaven.

But on Sunday we celebrated the resurrection of our Savior - and He has conquered sin and death once and for all.  We may live between the already and the not yet (as Paul Tripp says), but we know the end of the story.  Jesus has already been victorious over the death and decay we feel every single day on this earth (says my hip that's been giving me fits this round of 1/2 marathon training). But we can have HOPE in the coming redemption.  

Without Jesus, the heaviness of this life would be unbearable.  But we can persevere in the strength of the Lord today - because we have bright hope for tomorrow.  He will make all things new, right every wrong, redeem what has been lost.  God is in the business of GIVING life and REDEEMING life and making things NEW.  And that's exactly what my heart needs, today.  Praise be to God.