Learning to laugh again...This season has been a fight for joy and an uphill road. I have in weeks past, regained the ability to smile, but today I think was the first time I have really laughed as a result of joy in such a while.
It's quite interesting how God chose to orchestrate it as well...symbolic of course, as it seems to be with me often. Two of my roommates and I went on a shopping trip tonight, mainly to the grocery store. We were unloading, and as I was carrying bags up to the elevator, I found out the hard way that we had packed too many cans into one plastic bag, and so the handle broke and some rolled out. I left those and went and put the others in the elevator where Kirsten was holding it for me. I came back and got the last of the groceries and then collected the torn bag of cans. I was able to pick it up as its own entity without the handle and carry it to the elevator. We put the bags down once again until we got to our floor. I went to pick up the bags again, along with the other...8 I was carrying (if you don't know me, I am very stubborn with certain things, and that includes not making more trips than is literally, physically possible). I succeeded except for when I tried to walk out of the elevator with the bag of cans. It proceeded to tear more, and then I found myself straddling the entrance of the elevator, not able to move because it would have been a literal avalanche of cans. I lost it and burst out laughing as did Kirsten, something we have not been able to do together in quite some time. She helped me and we just kept laughing and Laura came to help too. Luckily we barely made it to our apartment, all cans intact.
Why did I find such a thing so amusing? Perhaps for once I was able to also laugh at myself in a more metaphorical way. I attempt to carry much more than I should only to find that it is stupid for me to do so. I do this in my own life instead of letting God carry those burdens, and only taking as many as He has called me to carry. I knew the bag would probably tear but I persisted, to the point in which it did. I had to stop dead in my tracks for these cans not to fall, straddling the line of the elevator. How often do I stop in my tracks of what I am doing in my life, knowing that my burden is too heavy, and allow Him to carry those? I wait until the last second before they fall or until after they fall, and then I have to face the consequences. I straddled a thin line tonight, as thin as the one in the elevator I was standing in. I could've chosen to be stubborn and tried to go on it on my own, unsuccessfully like I had been, or I could've relented like I did, laughing at myself and the situation. For once I saw how truly ridiculous I am and can be, for it was obvious the burden was too much for me to carry, and all I could do was laugh at myself and the situation. I found joy in the fact that I was able to give these cans to my sisters and my burdens to God, marking a significant change in the day.
I am so stubborn and stupid and silly so often...I should be laughing at myself, it's ridiculous. Yet I also laugh once again at finding a newfound joy in God who loves me, stuck in the elevator, spilling cans and all.
And as the statement in the sand in the above picture states, God is good. Though the waves may wash that away from the sand in time, that fact will never wash away from my heart.
Learning to laugh again...it feels good.
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