Air Force One. Harrison Ford. The movie is coming to a close and they are backed into a corner with no options left. They were about to be destroyed. All of a sudden, the night sky lights up as the first enemy plane is shot down. As the flames illuminate everything, you see a perfect formation of US pilots literally charging in. You can feel the shift. #gohollywood Harrison Ford giggles, “The good guys are here”. It’s one of my most favorite freaking scenes in a movie of all time. Because really, isn’t that what we all want? An overwhelming grand display of the good guys. Million dollar fighter jets with superior technology. Perfect flying formations, superior trained pilots and dramatic score playing along side it all. Confidence. Everything’s going to be ok. The good guys are here. You can rest. They will handle it.
So what do I do when I find myself backed up against a wall? I tell you what I usually do. I turn to google. My child isn’t understanding math? There must be something wrong. It must be the math curriculum. Google: Top Math curriculum. Then I had a thought. Math is hard. Said child doesn’t prefer math. I researched, prayed and chose the curriculum and was confident in my decision when the school year started. Maybe, just maybe, the correct thing to do is stay the course because Math. Is. Hard.
Staying the course is the hardest of options for me. I’m a fixer, a researcher, and a planner by day. It is SO much easier to spend 16 and a half hours searching for a new, bright, shiny, math curriculum, rather than spend 15 minutes with a child who is about to throw her math book out the window. Now sometimes, the right thing to do may be to in fact, throw the math book out the window and purchase a new curriculum. However, far more often than not, I find myself being distracted by the possibilities because the work in front of me is boring and hard. If, I just search a little more, I will find the answer. There is such hope in the searching. Hope that there is an easier way.
It isn’t always about keto or paleo, cry it out or co sleep, Saxon or Teaching Textbooks. Sometimes its just about grit. Firmness of character. Vigor. Digging your heels in and doing the work He’s laid before me, rather than searching for the right method, book, or tool. Life isn’t about seeking how to make it easier. Hard days, hard challenges, hard children just may be more of a sign that you are doing it right, rather than doing it wrong.
It’s the point in this post where I should use the Air Force One example to tie this all up in some pretty little bow. You know how great preachers have this gift of looking at a dust bunny in the corner of the room and tying it in to some magical life changing illustration. I literally don’t have that gift. But I am about to tell you that a scene in Air Force One causes me to think of Jesus. Because that relief that Harrison Ford feels when he sees the good guys is what I want to bottle up and capture and remember on my very darkest of days. The creator of the entire Universe has me in the palm of His hand, He’s here. He is working all things together for my good. I can both rest in that and dig deep and go to work on exactly what is in front of me at the exact same time.
I need to be still far more often and stop using google, phone a friend and whatever life line I can grab ahold of to to solve my problems and make my life simpler. The hard is part of it all. It’s not something to eliminate, it is something to embrace. Help me Jesus to lean in always.
