I had my four kids and dog with me. My youngest are almost 4 and 5, but they get tired real easy so I brought along the double stroller. I so wish that I had a jogger stroller, but instead I have a big, honkin' one that is long because one sits in front of the other. So there I was, pushing a big, heavy stroller with 90 lbs of extra weight. One that isn't made for terrain of any kind.
We started out on a flat area, but quickly came to a very steep hill through the woods. The trail isn't paved at all. As you can imagine, it was quite difficult to push that heavy load up that steep hill. If the steepness of the hills weren't bad enough.... they had these thin logs half buried going across the trail up and down the hills (I am guessing for footing or to keep strollers from running away?). Getting the stroller over those was hard. I had to lift the front wheels one at a time to get over it. It wasn't easy and one time I almost tipped the kids right over!
Roughly the first half was up and down hills. I quickly was all on my own with my two little ones. Every once in a while my 20 year old friend (who has a lot more energy than me! haha) would double back to help me, then run ahead again. But for the most part, I was alone with two of my kids (my older two and the dog took off ahead of us). Pushing that stroller up those hills cause my legs to burn with pain, my elbows to ache, and my shoulders to get sore. It was quite a challenge for me.
It took us a little over an hour to complete the race. By the time I got to the end, I was beat. I wanted to just go home and crash. By the time I got home I was starting to feel real good and felt accomplished and proud of what I had completed. And that got me thinking about how this race was a great metaphor for life.
Life isn't an easy, flat, paved path. It is definitely like the terrain I faced today. Some parts the hills (trials) were steeper than others and sometimes my load was heavier than others (my kids got out every once in a while to run, then got back in. On one hill I kicked them out of the stroller because I honestly couldn't push at all with the amount of weight bearing down on me). During the big trials, extra bumps were added that made facing the it even more challenging. There were times when I felt that I couldn't make it because the load was too heavy and the hill too big. Several of the times that I was feeling that way, my friend showed up and helped me to push the stroller up the hill or keep the stroller from going out of the control down the steep hills. Other times I did face it alone and had to muster up enough strength to bear through it. I doubted my ability to make it through parts of it, but I did it. I made it through. I was given strength to make it through. The hill didn't disappear, but sometimes I was able to gather more strength and other times I was blessed to have my burden made light (by the kids getting out), or someone helped me through it. At the end, I felt relief and proud that I made it through. I realized I was stronger than I thought I was.
I loved this realization. No matter what, we are going to have trials in life. There will be times when we feel we cannot make it through, that the pain is too much. We may feel we just aren't strong enough. We may just want to sit down and quit. But all that does is keep us in the trial. We don't go anywhere, we don't move forward, we remain stuck. Through help from God and His son Jesus Christ, we can get through the trials. Sometimes it is by giving us strength, sometimes by lightening our load, and sometimes by sending someone to help us. They are there for us and will help us through if we let them, if we accept the help.
As I sat down to write this, I had another realization. Tomorrow is Easter. I realized how well the experience goes along with the holiday. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We think of all He did for us as He suffered in Gethsemane. He took on the weight of our sins, He felt the sickness, the pain- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual... He felt it all. Because He has felt it all, He has a complete understanding of each and every thing that we may go through. He died and was resurrected that we too might have eternal life. By taking upon Himself our sins, we are clean (if we but repent) so can be worthy to be in God's presence again. He did all of this for each of us because of how much He loves us and cares about us.
Often times we don't recognize God's hand in our lives. During the good times we might forget that He helped us and blessed us with the things we were in need of. During the hard times we might feel like He has abandoned us. I have felt that way before. I felt alone and like God wasn't really there, like He had withdrawn from me. Really what happened was I had withdrawn from Him. I pushed HIM away, not the other way around. I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father is always waiting with open arms for His children to return to him. I truly believe that it hurts Him to see his children go through difficult times, but He knows with his infinite wisdom that by letting us go through these trials that we will come out so much stronger. He knows that our spiritual and emotional strength will increase and we will grow from the experiences. So although we may feel alone, He really is there. Sometimes for our benefit He may be on the sidelines, but He is there. He is cheering us on. He is rooting for us to succeed. He loves us with more depth than we can possibly comprehend. He loves YOU and He always will.
