Do you remember when the Wii games first came out? My daughter was crazy about them and wanted me to play one where you swing an imaginary sword and fight off enemies who are coming from every direction to knock you off the top of a mountain. Well, I really hate to lose, so I began swinging the sword with quite a vengeance. Bam! Knocked the first one off and cheered, and then continued feverishly fighting...and swinging...until I had fought off every last one of them. Each fighter was more aggressive and devious than the last, and I got more and more determined with every attacker. This actually took quite some time before I was declared a winner.
When it was over, I was breathless and sweaty, and suddenly a little embarrassed that I had gotten so ridiculously out of control over a silly game like that. I looked at my daughter who had an expression of "that was disturbing to watch", and quite frankly, I was a little disturbed by it, myself. Did I have unresolved anger issues?This past week I feel like I have been on top of that mountain swinging a sword fighting one thing after another. We have been through a very trying stretch that has been hitting us from every angle. We couldn't solve one problem before another popped up. And they were all critical.
Here are a few examples, and I'm leaving out bee stings and flat tires. We had a number of horrible maintenance issues that suddenly showed up out of nowhere. We lost our local honey supplier who suddenly went out of business, leaving us to replace him with no notice and lots of granola orders to fill. A distributor for a large grocery store chain actually lost over two hundred cases of our granola (which is still unresolved). We watched two families walk out the door after we had gotten attached to the children, which broke our hearts. And then, just when we thought things couldn't get worse, one of our dearest Blue Monarch family members was diagnosed with cancer. That was the straw that broke this camel's back and that's when the tears started falling.
I had just received this heartbreaking news when my husband and I were leaving for a wedding. But this was no ordinary wedding. It was for one of our very first residents, Chrystal, who has always been very special to me. I've seen her through the best of times. And I have seen her in the absolute worst of times. Through lots of hard work, she had finally straightened up her life, had regained custody of three children, she had developed a strong spiritual life, and was marrying a good man. So I left for her wedding with a heavy, weary heart, but wouldn't miss Chrystal's wedding for anything in the world. I was so proud of her.
Chrystal typically calls me on Mother's Day and when I arrived at the church she presented me with a Mother's corsage, which was such a sweet surprise.
It was a lovely wedding and a beautiful ending to a terrible week. However, it was the thirteen year old young man who gave Chrystal away that got the best of me. And there's no way to understand why unless you know the full story. Watch the short video below from an earlier blog post and you'll see why this evening was so special...
Thank you, Lord, for such a powerful reminder of why we do what we do - even on the days we are weary from swinging swords.
For this earlier blog post click here: My Favorite Blue Monarch Christmas Story
