Cereal

In my latest Donald Miller reading, "Through Painted Deserts," he describes his road trip he took with a friend which included a stop and hike at the Grand Canyon. He gives a depiction of how painful it was to hike down and up the gargantuan gorge, experiencing total and utter exhaustion, thirst, and hunger. He's not even nearly in the best shape, his pack is too heavy, and his toes are bleeding in his shoes. At one point his buddy says that he would give anything for a bowl of Raisin Bran and cold milk right now. Don agrees and thinks about the crisp flakes, plump raisins, and refreshing milk, his mouth watering. He then recalls how only days earlier, he was dreaming of a new car, a new boat, or a new girlfriend... and now his dream has been reduced to a simple bowl of cereal. Isn't it funny, he asks, how he could be perfectly happy with just cereal, and yet there are people out there killing themselves because they want a whole lot more.

I've been thinking a lot about this. It's true, ya know. We want status, success, money, cars, clothes... And yet life is so much simpler. We get this idea cooked up in our heads somehow about what our lives should be like; what our jobs will be, how much money we'll make, how we'll spend our time, what our families should be like, where we should live, how many bedrooms our houses should have, what our retirement plan should be, and we worry and fret and cause ourselves years of bad health from stress and anxiety over stuff that doesn't even matter.

After I left school today from substitute teaching, I drove to Luke's grandmother's house about 15 miles or so out into the country to see our dog. He is currently staying with Mammo while Luke and I have not yet closed on our house. I got there and discovered no one was home and the door was locked. Instead of kicking myself and getting mad that I'd wasted time and gas and could have just called first, I smiled and thought to myself, 'Well, at least I got to see all those beautiful orange and green trees and hills on my drive and had some more time to think.' Because isn't that more what God intended life for us to be? For us to enjoy creation, beauty, time, and love? For us to draw closer to Him through the things He meant for us to see all along?

I substitute taught for the same class all week. As I have slowly began getting to know my students and all their quirks, I sometimes sit at my desk, studying each of them, wondering about their stories; wondering if they know the kind of love that I know, the kind of love that still puzzles me every waking moment and that I know I'll never fully grasp but that I know I cannot possibly live without. It's the love I always come back to. I'll have a moment or an unfortunate collection of moments where I'll do or say or think something stupid, like say something selfish to my husband or dream a self-centered dream or act prideful in front someone that I think is not as good as me, and then I have that horrible yet redeeming moment where the sin eats my heart alive and I confess and come back. I come back to this perfect, all-consuming, invincible love and I realize that nothing else will ever make me happy. Nothing but my relationship with God will ever fulfill me or make sense or make life complete.

I told my husband today that I'd like to take a long, challenging hike with him someday. I want that feeling of surrendering to the wilderness and dreaming of an effortless bowl of Froot Loops. I want to set off, inexperienced, naive, and unprepared, with no makeup and greasy hair, into the unknown of some mountain or jungle or canyon, swallowed by its glory... Just so I can know that feeling, that feeling that maybe this is all I need.