(updated)
I was driving to the flower shop today to pick up some onion transplants when I heard a line from a song that really stuck with me. It was something about ‘not knowing how the journey will end.’ And it hit me that that’s exactly what has always scared me about life ... not knowing where things are headed. To me, everything feels doomed, like tragedy and heartache are always right around the corner. And so I guess I live with a constant, deep sense of anxiety and discouragement. Always waiting for the next bad thing.
And I began to think, "Why do I always have to think that ‘not knowing how this journey will end’ means ‘tragedy and trouble are up ahead’? Why can’t it mean ‘exciting, unexpected adventures and surprises await you’? Why can’t I look forward into the hazy, foggy future with ‘Oh, cool, maybe something great will happen soon,’ instead of always with ‘Oh no!’? How different life would feel if I looked forward to the future instead of dreaded it, or if I counted the blessings instead of the problems and fears."
(I think this comes with a broken home life, among other things. Things just don’t feel secure and carefree after watching your family break apart. Several times.)
I wish I could feel the way some people do, the lightness and optimism, the feeling that life is generally good but has moments of bad. I, on the other hand, feel like it’s mostly negative but with moments of positive. My husband and sons, my faith, and a friend or two are the only real bright spots, and I live to (hopefully) reflect Christ to others. But the rest is just ... there. And I have to look hard to find the positives in each day, to find the joys.
A couple months ago, I asked God a question (from my post 250 Questions to Ask God). I asked Him what movie character I remind Him of. And for the longest time, I heard no reply. But then I was watching a movie this past weekend, and I found the movie character that I think I most closely resemble: a hobbit. Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
A couple months ago, I asked God a question (from my post 250 Questions to Ask God). I asked Him what movie character I remind Him of. And for the longest time, I heard no reply. But then I was watching a movie this past weekend, and I found the movie character that I think I most closely resemble: a hobbit. Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Like him, I just want to stay at home and live a common, simple, uneventful life. I just want to take care of my family, read, do my house work, and tend to my garden. I don’t want changes because they're usually not for the better. And I would have done exactly what Bilbo did when Gandalf invited him on an adventure. I would have been like, “No, no, no. No adventure for me, thankyouverymuch. Adventures are nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things, make you late for dinner!”
And like Bilbo, I often feel small, weak, and easily overlooked. Unimportant. Insignificant. Invisible. I am not a bold, feisty, drunk-on-life dwarf. I am not a regal, heroic elf. Or a confident, wise, commanding wizard. I am a quiet, uneventful hobbit who can easily get lost in a crowd and who just wants to quietly live my simple little life in peace.
And like Bilbo, I often feel small, weak, and easily overlooked. Unimportant. Insignificant. Invisible. I am not a bold, feisty, drunk-on-life dwarf. I am not a regal, heroic elf. Or a confident, wise, commanding wizard. I am a quiet, uneventful hobbit who can easily get lost in a crowd and who just wants to quietly live my simple little life in peace.
However, you’ll remember (if you’ve seen the movie) that Bilbo’s curiosity got the best of him. And he ran after the dwarves, ready to enter the unknown. To embark on a dangerous journey. He was going on an adventure. And while he didn’t know what was around the corner, he was willing to face it. He didn’t let the fear of the unknown hold him back, even if it meant he might not make it back home again. But he willingly took that risk so that he could have a chance to live big for once in his life.
For each of us, life includes times when we get to rest on the comfortable, level plains (the easy times), and times when we get to experience the exciting mountaintops (the wonderful high points of life). And I wish life were full of only these plains and mountaintops. I would love to live a comfortable, simple, plain life with some random, wonderful, glorious high points thrown in now and then to liven it all up.
For each of us, life includes times when we get to rest on the comfortable, level plains (the easy times), and times when we get to experience the exciting mountaintops (the wonderful high points of life). And I wish life were full of only these plains and mountaintops. I would love to live a comfortable, simple, plain life with some random, wonderful, glorious high points thrown in now and then to liven it all up.
But on this fallen planet, we are not meant to live in those places forever. And I think most of us will find ourselves trudging through too many deep, dark, difficult valleys. Many of us will be unwillingly dragged from our comfortable hobbit holes and forced to embark on unexpected journeys of our own. Full of troubles and heartache and struggle.
In fact, we Christians are guaranteed that this journey will include dangers. It will not be easy. There will be persecution and temptations and tribulations. And there won't just be earthly battles and enemies, but there will be spiritual ones too. And there is a very good chance that the adventure will change us and that we won't ever return to “the comfortable life” again.
Like Gandalf warned Bilbo - that even if Bilbo did come back from the adventure, he wouldn't be the same. But this is the way it should be - our spiritual journeys should change us. Because if they didn't, we'd never grow. We'd never get stronger. We'd never learn humility. We'd never learn to rely on God more or to trust Him more deeply.
Like Bilbo, we don't have to go looking for difficult adventures. They will find us. We will walk through hard times, whether we invited them or not. We will face times we feel weak and scared and hopelessly lost. There will be times we feel unimportant and overlooked, wondering if our contribution matters at all, wondering why everyone else is doing so much better than us. We will struggle with wanting to give up, to hide from the world, to flop exhausted into bed and pull the covers up over our heads and fall asleep forever, feeling like we can't make it even one ... more ... day. We'll desperately long for the easy plains and the glorious mountaintops, and we'll wonder if there is something wrong with us that we keep ending up in so many valleys.
In fact, we Christians are guaranteed that this journey will include dangers. It will not be easy. There will be persecution and temptations and tribulations. And there won't just be earthly battles and enemies, but there will be spiritual ones too. And there is a very good chance that the adventure will change us and that we won't ever return to “the comfortable life” again.
Like Gandalf warned Bilbo - that even if Bilbo did come back from the adventure, he wouldn't be the same. But this is the way it should be - our spiritual journeys should change us. Because if they didn't, we'd never grow. We'd never get stronger. We'd never learn humility. We'd never learn to rely on God more or to trust Him more deeply.
Like Bilbo, we don't have to go looking for difficult adventures. They will find us. We will walk through hard times, whether we invited them or not. We will face times we feel weak and scared and hopelessly lost. There will be times we feel unimportant and overlooked, wondering if our contribution matters at all, wondering why everyone else is doing so much better than us. We will struggle with wanting to give up, to hide from the world, to flop exhausted into bed and pull the covers up over our heads and fall asleep forever, feeling like we can't make it even one ... more ... day. We'll desperately long for the easy plains and the glorious mountaintops, and we'll wonder if there is something wrong with us that we keep ending up in so many valleys.
Bilbo didn’t know what was ahead when he set out on his journey. His adventure. He just knew that it would be uncomfortable, dangerous, and that he might not live through it. But he willingly entered the very long, dark, scary valley.
And it was in the long, dark, scary valley that he found out what he was really made of, where his character was tested and refined, where he found his strength and his courage. When he was pushed to his limits - when all comforts were taken away, when all the silly, little, temporary things he once cherished and pursued were gone, when he was stripped of the things that used to give him satisfaction and stability - he learned what he was really capable of and what really mattered.
When faced with the opportunity, Bilbo chose to not settle for the simple, easy, comfortable life. He chose to experience more. To be more. To stretch. To grow.
And I guess that’s what God wants for us, too, even if we don’t want it for ourselves. He wants more for us. He wants us to have more, to be more. To experience life more deeply so that we can experience Him more deeply. He wants life to be abundant for us. Full. Meaningful. Eternally rewarding.
But not necessarily simple or easy or "happy."
Things that are valuable and long-lasting usually don't come easily. And things that come easily are usually not very valuable or long-lasting.
And that’s why we end up in the difficult valleys so much more often than we want. Because it's in the valleys where we are stretched, where we learn who we really are and how much more we need to grow and what really matters in life, where we reprioritize our lives and goals and pursuits, where we are stripped of the things we once thought we needed for support and success and satisfaction, where we transform from spiritual worriers into spiritual warriors, where we learn to trust God more and lean on God more in the face of the difficulties that break us down.
These lessons don't come easily. Nothing worth it ever really does. This is why the valleys are so hard and hurt so much, why the struggles are so fierce.
We can't learn to really trust God in painful hard times ... until we face painful hard times.
We can't learn to lean fully on Him ... until we are stripped of the earthly supports we lean on.
We can't learn how little we are ... until life breaks us down so much that we see how helpless and incapable and not-in-control we are.
We can't learn how big He is and how much we need Him and how sufficient His grace is ... until we have nothing left but Him.
It's so easy to say, "I'll trust God no matter what" ... until "no matter what" happens. But when "no matter what" happens - shaking our little hobbit walls and knocking us off our comfortable little hobbit chairs - we start to learn what's really inside of us and how much we don't know and how much we can't do and how much we need Him. Not just want Him, but really need Him.
And it's when we learn how much we really need Him that we finally begin to see clearly - to see Him for who He really is and ourselves for who we really are. And we grow. Even though it hurts, we grow. Whether we wanted to or not, we grow.
We learn that His grace is sufficient for us and that it's okay that we are weak, because He is strong (2 Cor. 12:9).
We learn to trust that He will provide for our needs while we focus on seeking Him and His kingdom above all, working for rewards that will last (Matthew 6:19-33).
We learn that what we see isn't all there is, that there is a spiritual battle going on all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not, and that we need to maintain our spiritual armor (Eph. 6:10-18).
We learn that we need to abide in the Lord daily (John 15) and that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
We learn to lift our eyes to the hills because we know where our help comes from, that our help comes from the Lord (Psalm 121:1).
We learn to trust Him with our deepest hurts, the things we try to keep hidden (Psalm 34:17-18, Psalm 147:3).
We learn to let our words be few (Ecc. 5:2, Hab. 2:20). (And we learn that it's okay if we only have a few words, because God knows our hearts, Psalm 139.)
We learn to not judge Him based on our circumstances. We learn that He is still a good, faithful, loving Father, even when things are going wrong. And so we learn to praise Him in the pain, to offer a sacrifice of praise, even when it hurts (Hebrews 13:15).
We learn to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, trusting Him to lift us up in due time (1 Peter 5:6).
We learn what it means to trust His timing and His way, even when it doesn't make sense to us (Jer. 29:11, Prov. 3:5-6), and to trust that He will work all things out for good, even things that aren't good (Romans 8:28).
We learn to be still and know that He is God and that we are not (Psalm 46:10).
We learn to pour out our requests honestly but end it with "Not my will but Yours be done" (Luke 22:42). To cry out "Whether you give or take away, blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). To know that, in the face of all our doubts and fears, it's okay to pray "I do believe, Lord, but help me overcome my unbelief" (Mark 9:24. It's not about how much faith we have, but about what - Who - we put it in.). And to proclaim, in the face of a mocking and hostile world, "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15) ... no matter what.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
The thing is ... the bad times will come. And they will hurt. And we will have very little control over that. But what we can control is how we respond to the bad times, to the pain.
Will we run to God ... or away from Him?
Will we choose to trust Him more ... or trust Him less?
Will we take Him at His Word ... or follow our feelings instead?
Will we let Him teach us and grow us through the trials ... or will we push Him away and harden our hearts in bitterness and resentment?
We can't change what we experienced in the past and we have little control over what trials we might face in the future, but we can decide how we will respond to the pain and the hardships. And how we respond, how we see our circumstances - whether as unbearable tragedies where God abandoned us or as opportunities for growth, for trusting the Lord and leaning on Him more - will greatly affect our spiritual lives, our emotions, and our futures. On earth and in eternity.
Don't let the painful trials drive you from the Lord; let them drive you to the Lord, to His Word, and to spiritual growth. You'll have to go through the pain anyway, but you don't have to go through it alone and you don't have to get nothing out of it. If nothing else, get more of the Lord! A spiritual gain and victory, even if everything else is falling apart.
In life, there will be enough of the easy, relaxing plains to give us a chance to catch our breath, in between the hard times. And there will be enough mountaintops – enough good moments - to keep us going, to keep our faith from dying completely, to give us hope and strength to face the hard times. (If you are really lost and struggling right now, drowning in depression or anxiety, tell the Lord about it and then ask Him to throw you a "life-ring verse," a verse you can grab onto to keep you afloat, to keep you from going under all the way. Also see my post "Help For Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts.")
But there will also be plenty of valleys, difficult adventures we didn't go looking for and don't want. But they will come to us anyway. Because it's in the valleys that we find out what we are really made of. It's the valleys that make us who we are. And it's our reactions to the valleys that shape who we will become.
And it was in the long, dark, scary valley that he found out what he was really made of, where his character was tested and refined, where he found his strength and his courage. When he was pushed to his limits - when all comforts were taken away, when all the silly, little, temporary things he once cherished and pursued were gone, when he was stripped of the things that used to give him satisfaction and stability - he learned what he was really capable of and what really mattered.
When faced with the opportunity, Bilbo chose to not settle for the simple, easy, comfortable life. He chose to experience more. To be more. To stretch. To grow.
And I guess that’s what God wants for us, too, even if we don’t want it for ourselves. He wants more for us. He wants us to have more, to be more. To experience life more deeply so that we can experience Him more deeply. He wants life to be abundant for us. Full. Meaningful. Eternally rewarding.
But not necessarily simple or easy or "happy."
Things that are valuable and long-lasting usually don't come easily. And things that come easily are usually not very valuable or long-lasting.
And that’s why we end up in the difficult valleys so much more often than we want. Because it's in the valleys where we are stretched, where we learn who we really are and how much more we need to grow and what really matters in life, where we reprioritize our lives and goals and pursuits, where we are stripped of the things we once thought we needed for support and success and satisfaction, where we transform from spiritual worriers into spiritual warriors, where we learn to trust God more and lean on God more in the face of the difficulties that break us down.
These lessons don't come easily. Nothing worth it ever really does. This is why the valleys are so hard and hurt so much, why the struggles are so fierce.
We can't learn to really trust God in painful hard times ... until we face painful hard times.
We can't learn to lean fully on Him ... until we are stripped of the earthly supports we lean on.
We can't learn how little we are ... until life breaks us down so much that we see how helpless and incapable and not-in-control we are.
We can't learn how big He is and how much we need Him and how sufficient His grace is ... until we have nothing left but Him.
It's so easy to say, "I'll trust God no matter what" ... until "no matter what" happens. But when "no matter what" happens - shaking our little hobbit walls and knocking us off our comfortable little hobbit chairs - we start to learn what's really inside of us and how much we don't know and how much we can't do and how much we need Him. Not just want Him, but really need Him.
And it's when we learn how much we really need Him that we finally begin to see clearly - to see Him for who He really is and ourselves for who we really are. And we grow. Even though it hurts, we grow. Whether we wanted to or not, we grow.
We learn that His grace is sufficient for us and that it's okay that we are weak, because He is strong (2 Cor. 12:9).
We learn to trust that He will provide for our needs while we focus on seeking Him and His kingdom above all, working for rewards that will last (Matthew 6:19-33).
We learn that what we see isn't all there is, that there is a spiritual battle going on all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not, and that we need to maintain our spiritual armor (Eph. 6:10-18).
We learn that we need to abide in the Lord daily (John 15) and that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
We learn to lift our eyes to the hills because we know where our help comes from, that our help comes from the Lord (Psalm 121:1).
We learn to trust Him with our deepest hurts, the things we try to keep hidden (Psalm 34:17-18, Psalm 147:3).
We learn to let our words be few (Ecc. 5:2, Hab. 2:20). (And we learn that it's okay if we only have a few words, because God knows our hearts, Psalm 139.)
We learn to not judge Him based on our circumstances. We learn that He is still a good, faithful, loving Father, even when things are going wrong. And so we learn to praise Him in the pain, to offer a sacrifice of praise, even when it hurts (Hebrews 13:15).
We learn to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, trusting Him to lift us up in due time (1 Peter 5:6).
We learn what it means to trust His timing and His way, even when it doesn't make sense to us (Jer. 29:11, Prov. 3:5-6), and to trust that He will work all things out for good, even things that aren't good (Romans 8:28).
We learn to be still and know that He is God and that we are not (Psalm 46:10).
We learn to pour out our requests honestly but end it with "Not my will but Yours be done" (Luke 22:42). To cry out "Whether you give or take away, blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). To know that, in the face of all our doubts and fears, it's okay to pray "I do believe, Lord, but help me overcome my unbelief" (Mark 9:24. It's not about how much faith we have, but about what - Who - we put it in.). And to proclaim, in the face of a mocking and hostile world, "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15) ... no matter what.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
The thing is ... the bad times will come. And they will hurt. And we will have very little control over that. But what we can control is how we respond to the bad times, to the pain.
Will we run to God ... or away from Him?
Will we choose to trust Him more ... or trust Him less?
Will we take Him at His Word ... or follow our feelings instead?
Will we let Him teach us and grow us through the trials ... or will we push Him away and harden our hearts in bitterness and resentment?
We can't change what we experienced in the past and we have little control over what trials we might face in the future, but we can decide how we will respond to the pain and the hardships. And how we respond, how we see our circumstances - whether as unbearable tragedies where God abandoned us or as opportunities for growth, for trusting the Lord and leaning on Him more - will greatly affect our spiritual lives, our emotions, and our futures. On earth and in eternity.
Don't let the painful trials drive you from the Lord; let them drive you to the Lord, to His Word, and to spiritual growth. You'll have to go through the pain anyway, but you don't have to go through it alone and you don't have to get nothing out of it. If nothing else, get more of the Lord! A spiritual gain and victory, even if everything else is falling apart.
In life, there will be enough of the easy, relaxing plains to give us a chance to catch our breath, in between the hard times. And there will be enough mountaintops – enough good moments - to keep us going, to keep our faith from dying completely, to give us hope and strength to face the hard times. (If you are really lost and struggling right now, drowning in depression or anxiety, tell the Lord about it and then ask Him to throw you a "life-ring verse," a verse you can grab onto to keep you afloat, to keep you from going under all the way. Also see my post "Help For Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts.")
But there will also be plenty of valleys, difficult adventures we didn't go looking for and don't want. But they will come to us anyway. Because it's in the valleys that we find out what we are really made of. It's the valleys that make us who we are. And it's our reactions to the valleys that shape who we will become.
It is in the valleys that our spiritual character is developed. This is where the greatest spiritual growth happens. Because deep growth comes through the hard times, the times of struggle. These are the times we wrestle with our faith and our views of God and self. These are the ways God refines us. This is where we learn who God really is, who we really are, and what faith really is. It's where we learn what it really means to live as Christ did, to be content, to let go of pride, to find our strength in the Lord, to trust Him no matter what, to rest in the sufficiency of God's grace when all else fails us, to seek God’s righteousness and Kingdom above all, to love sacrificially, to praise God simply because He is praiseworthy even when our hearts are breaking, to focus on what really matters in life, etc.
[And when we are in the valleys, we need to be conscientious to remember the good moments, the high points, the mountaintops. Because it's so easy to get discouraged when you're in a dark valley for a long time or when you're facing one dark valley after the next for a long time. It's easy to forget that there were, are, and will be more blessings. More good moments. As Bono sang, if we're not careful, we can get Stuck In A Moment that we can't get out of. And though we wish it were a relaxing picnic, 2 Timothy 4:7 reminds us that life is a fight, a race. And we have to fight the good fight and run the race in such as way as to get the prize (1 Cor. 9:24). Yes, we will be hard-pressed on all sides, but we won't be crushed completely; we will be perplexed, but not left in despair; we will be persecuted, but never abandoned; we will be struck down, but not destroyed (2 Cor. 4:8-9). Because we do not fight the battle alone or run the race alone. If we focus on Him (Matthew 6:33) and remain in Him (John 15:4-8), the Lord will go before us and with us (Deut. 31:8) and will keep us safe (Psalm 23 and 121) and will work all things out for good, even the bad and painful things (Romans 8:28). This - the eternal rewards, the moment we hear "Well done, good and faithful servant" - will make all the struggle worth it!]
What really matters in life is not really this life at all. What really matters is eternity. And eternity is being shaped by how we live our lives now. But it’s not shaped as much by how many mountaintops, plains, or valleys we go through in life. It is shaped more by how we journey through them. By what we learn from them. By how we grow because of them.
[And when we are in the valleys, we need to be conscientious to remember the good moments, the high points, the mountaintops. Because it's so easy to get discouraged when you're in a dark valley for a long time or when you're facing one dark valley after the next for a long time. It's easy to forget that there were, are, and will be more blessings. More good moments. As Bono sang, if we're not careful, we can get Stuck In A Moment that we can't get out of. And though we wish it were a relaxing picnic, 2 Timothy 4:7 reminds us that life is a fight, a race. And we have to fight the good fight and run the race in such as way as to get the prize (1 Cor. 9:24). Yes, we will be hard-pressed on all sides, but we won't be crushed completely; we will be perplexed, but not left in despair; we will be persecuted, but never abandoned; we will be struck down, but not destroyed (2 Cor. 4:8-9). Because we do not fight the battle alone or run the race alone. If we focus on Him (Matthew 6:33) and remain in Him (John 15:4-8), the Lord will go before us and with us (Deut. 31:8) and will keep us safe (Psalm 23 and 121) and will work all things out for good, even the bad and painful things (Romans 8:28). This - the eternal rewards, the moment we hear "Well done, good and faithful servant" - will make all the struggle worth it!]
What really matters in life is not really this life at all. What really matters is eternity. And eternity is being shaped by how we live our lives now. But it’s not shaped as much by how many mountaintops, plains, or valleys we go through in life. It is shaped more by how we journey through them. By what we learn from them. By how we grow because of them.
And as I said, the greatest spiritual growth happens in the valleys. And so I can’t really despise the long, dark, difficult valleys. I don't like them because they cause a lot of pain, but when I look back on the hard times, I realize that I don't regret them, not really. Because I can honestly say that my greatest spiritual growth happened in the valleys. As hard as it was. And I know that this will greatly impact my eternity for the better.
Bilbo went through a lot of trials and pain in his journey, like many of us who face more valleys than mountaintops. But what makes our journey different than his is that ... we know how our journey ends. We are going to make it Home. So I guess I don’t really need to be afraid of “not knowing how the journey ends.” Because I know that whatever happens here, despite all the pain, my journey ends in heaven, by Jesus's side. Eternal rest with Him. And knowing that this is how the journey ends will help get me through a lifetime of valleys.
We don’t have to despair during the hard times in life, the nasty adventures. We can face them with confidence, taking comfort in the fact that God walks with us through them, that He is watching over us and will sustain us, and that the pain won’t last forever. And we can rejoice knowing that someday God will make all things new, and He will work all these trials and heartaches into something good. He has promised that for those of us who love Him. No matter how many valleys we face in life, He is with us the whole way, until we reach that last and greatest mountaintop: Home!
We don’t have to despair during the hard times in life, the nasty adventures. We can face them with confidence, taking comfort in the fact that God walks with us through them, that He is watching over us and will sustain us, and that the pain won’t last forever. And we can rejoice knowing that someday God will make all things new, and He will work all these trials and heartaches into something good. He has promised that for those of us who love Him. No matter how many valleys we face in life, He is with us the whole way, until we reach that last and greatest mountaintop: Home!
Thank You, God, for carrying me through my unexpected journeys. It's not such a bad thing being a hobbit after all. Because even little hobbits can do big things when a big God is by their side.
[Here is a song and video I absolutely love (it's what got me addicted to the movies lately): The Last Goodbye, sung by Billy Boyd (one of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings) during the credits at the end of Battle of the Five Armies. I love so many scenes in this video because they remind me of the kind of life I've lived. The good times. The pain. The tragedies. The moments of exhilaration, of despair, of being stunned into silence. The times you have to resolutely do what you don't want to do (or as John Wayne put it in one of my favorite quotes: "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." Kinda how I feel about life in general.). The times you're exhausted from the journey and just want to give up but you know you have to go on and it scares you. The friends who've been through it all with you, who've seen you at your worst and helped you up from your lowest. Etc.
The journey is long and hard for most of us, but since you have to go through it anyway, do it right. With all you've got in you, for God's glory and His kingdom. For eternity. Someday ... someday soon ... we'll be saying our Last Goodbye to this world and we'll finally be Home and we'll hear those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
And I can't wait for that day! It'll be what makes this difficult journey so very worth it!]
[Here is a song and video I absolutely love (it's what got me addicted to the movies lately): The Last Goodbye, sung by Billy Boyd (one of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings) during the credits at the end of Battle of the Five Armies. I love so many scenes in this video because they remind me of the kind of life I've lived. The good times. The pain. The tragedies. The moments of exhilaration, of despair, of being stunned into silence. The times you have to resolutely do what you don't want to do (or as John Wayne put it in one of my favorite quotes: "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." Kinda how I feel about life in general.). The times you're exhausted from the journey and just want to give up but you know you have to go on and it scares you. The friends who've been through it all with you, who've seen you at your worst and helped you up from your lowest. Etc.
The journey is long and hard for most of us, but since you have to go through it anyway, do it right. With all you've got in you, for God's glory and His kingdom. For eternity. Someday ... someday soon ... we'll be saying our Last Goodbye to this world and we'll finally be Home and we'll hear those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
And I can't wait for that day! It'll be what makes this difficult journey so very worth it!]
