A blessing is defined as God's favor and protection, and a burden is defined as a heavy load.
That leads me to the question....Can God's favor come in the form of a heavy load?
As we continue to live "out of bounds" it seems more so than not, blessing comes in the form of a heavy load. On a particularly exhausting day in the RV with my 4 blessings and an equally exhausted husband, I took a drive and thought "what is the cure for being in a place that I have received all that I have prayed for, dreamed of, and waited patiently (okay, somewhat patiently) for? How can I be so blessed and yet so downtrodden?
Scott and I on the good days are looking at each other saying "this is difficult" "Or "this is challenging." On the bad days we are saying things a little louder and less kind. I remember when Shiloh was born, there was an adjustment period that I just did not understand. I was exhausted at a level that I could not comprehend. I feel like I am there again. It's not the sleep deprivation exhausted. It is the mind and body running at record speeds. I know Scott feels the same way. He is coming through the door at the same time that I am holding up the white flag of surrender. And some days we handle it with grace and teamwork. And some days we compete selfishly for who is worthier of a break.
This is such a fantastic time in our lives. I know that we will look back on this with pleasure and adoration... "remember when?" "where were we when...?" "Can you believe that happened?" and all the weariness will be long forgotten. But at the same time we chose a difficult road (or it chose us).Scott's job gets us to all the new and exciting places, but then he has to go to work (usually long hours). So he misses out on a lot of what I get to experience with the girls. Also, one parent leading 4 children into unfamiliar territory is not quite the experience that it looks like in pictures. But those travel days, even in separate vehicles have an air of anticipation like no other, and the time in between jobs is a reprieve that we were not getting with one steady job and living in one location. Hopefully the time in between jobs will get longer and longer as we figure out our finances.
Shortly before we left Utah, we heard a sermon about blessings. And it gave me a totally different perspective. When praying for a blessing...the job promotion, the dream home, the baby, the acceptance into a certain college, or the ability to make a career change... it all comes with more responsibility, more work. We did get married, and we did have a baby (and then baby, baby, baby), and we did jump into RV life. And each addition or change has required more purposeful living and effort and increased our pursuit for a successful outcome.
There are people in the world that think running a marathon or some other big athletic endeavor is a goal worthy of pursuing. That is not my calling. You will not see me pursuing anything that requires running. But there is so much work and training that takes place for that accomplishment. And it hurts, and it requires time, and exhausting effort, setbacks and training and new habits. Our goal to experience life together outside of the status quo, to raise four kids to be adaptable and thrive in new and unfamiliar environments, to follow God's leading, and ultimately to bend our hearts towards our personal calling and refinement is worthy of pursuing. The difficulty is just a part of the process, not a burden that cancels out the blessing.
Afterthought:
I was struggling through the cohesiveness of my thoughts while writing this. I kept asking, "am I saying what I really want to say?" I was also surprised to see a draft saved about this very subject from six months ago. This has apparently been on my heart for some time and I really needed to hash it out. But it wasn't coming together the way I wanted it to, because my focus was on hard parts of the last week. Today, Scott and I were able to experience a wonderful day with the girls together, and I went back and edited quite a bit of my original post.
I have been annoyed by the range of emotions and heightened anxiety I feel with each arrival to a new destination. We have been trained by years of experience that you stick with one company and wake up to the same job every day. Our security has rested in that. Leaving a temporary job and wondering where we are going next still creates a churn in the belly(and a test of our faith). Getting to a job on time creates some hectic travel days (and we ask a lot of our kids on those days). Then, Scott has to pass the welding test and getting set up on payroll takes some time. I immediately start to calculate what we have already spent from what we saved from the previous job, and when the next check is coming in. We have a pediatrician, a dentist, and mechanic to find. And we are in a very strange RV Park that is run very differently from any place we have been. Unlike some full-time RVers, we are not visitors to a new place for a week or two, we become part of the community for a time. Today, was the first day that we were able to take a breath and enjoy our new surroundings in a brief sabbatical.
It was the perfect opportunity to live out what increased blessing looks like in this season of life. I told Scott at the beginning that we needed to lower our expectation for the day (something to consider for every day), because we had two children that were already whining and complaining about various things. It took quite a bit of strategy parenting to get us to New York City on a long train ride with antsy children. We had to discipline, correct, raise our voices from time to time, but we were able to establish parameters and boundaries that lead to us all having a good time. Was there some whining, some pouting, and some disappointments? Yes. Is going to a packed, touristy location with 4 children very different from going together on a romantic vacation...YES! But what an incredible blessing to be enjoying a huge city and experiencing something new and exciting waiting around each corner. And there truly is nothing like seeing something through a child's eyes!
