Dairy Aisle

On Sunday evenings, after a long run down the river, I always make my way to the grocery store. Sweaty, fulfilled and finally feeling ready to take on the inevitable heartache of the week to come, I fill my basket with the sustenance needed to nourish me throughout the week. Turns out, what my body needs more than vitamins and minerals is a rather large quantity of hummus and a family sized bag of pita chips…..for a family of one. I mean I got the whole wheat version, so don’t judge me. They are like little organic farms smushed into chip form. Way better than getting my chubby hand caught in the Pringles can.

Shivering in the dairy aisle, I wait patiently as the line of people in front of me slowly turned the cartons around looking for the expiration date, all of which are well over 2 weeks away. Each shopper snubbing the carton in the front for one of the newer, fresher, less sad versions sitting pristinely in the back, just off the milk truck.  One after another, these people would look the first carton over, deciding it looked too war-torn to be a part of their basket, too frazzled and bedraggled after its journey not only to the store, but its long stint of patiently and silently holding up the weight of the other cartons.

Finally at the front, my turn to choose my carton, I looked the first carton up and down, it’s beaten, crusty shell with one rather large dent at the top still bowing under the pressure of the row above it. And then, I grabbed the carton towards the back of the shelf.

Expiration date identical. Contents exactly the same. Yet, different because of the outer face earned from a life lived on a road with a few more bumps. A few more heartaches. A few more hard lessons learned.

Do you ever feel like that milk carton? Like the weight of the world is carried on your back, supporting the hardships of others by baring the burden of others. Crushed, beaten and less than perfect.

One of my unspoken fears (until now when I decided to make it public to anyone with a web browser), is that singlehood will leave me marred and unwanted. The carton in the front, too battered and scarred to be worth anything to anyone. It’s as if weekly, a new weight is added to the already crippling stack I tote around. Who knew your ‘carefree’ twenties could be so full of things worth caring about?

God has given us all our cross. If he hadn’t…he wouldn’t have told us to pick it up. The choice is not whether or not you have a struggle that God has laid at your feet, the choice lies in your reaction. Do you pick it up, daily, every morning dusting off the wounds and muck from the day before, knowing that there is only more to come? Or do you halfheartedly accept God’s will for your life? Journeying into the trenches of our broken world only when it is convenient to you.

There is beauty in the mess. Though your carton may look as if it has been to hell and back, your contents remain unscathed. We do not live in promises of ease and comfort, we live under the covenant of a Savior who will not let you go, and does not put you through anything that He himself did not withstand.

God’s will is not painless. It can be brutal, but there is a promise that He makes us that you can take hope in. Though difficult and seemingly relentless, it is full of a richness and depth that is incomparable to anything you will find on the wide path that so many choose.

As your carton gets hammered and worn, remember that hardships do not spoil the insides. The do not reduce the expiration date, leaving you half as effective as you once could have been. God has created in you a resilience, supported by His Spirit. A spirit not of timidity, but of strength, confidence and patience.

Let your bruises show as evidence of the war you have fought, for a prize that is unlike any other.

 ^“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 6: 11-12