Reasons

I have been thinking about something, mulling it over, and it goes something like this: There is, I think, only one reason to do or not do anything. I do what I do because I want to do it. All my other reasons for not doing something, if I really want to do it, are mere obstacles to overcome.

This past weekend, there was a conference that I wanted to go to. Now, there have been many things, over the years, that we have not tried to do because it was too hard, the kids wouldn't get enough sleep, etc. And now, with a dozen children between the ages of 3 months and 14 years, I just decided, we're going to go. I want my kids there, I want to be there. It will be hard, but everything is hard, and some things are worth the hard.

My friend told me about a wedding she attended last week. The mother of the bride was an exceptional person, in that she had been paralyzed at the age of 17, has limited use of her upper body, gets around in a specialized chair, and yet has given birth to and raised two children, and last week danced, in her chair, at her daughter's wedding.

At the conference I was at, the speaker talked about how the Israelites built a tabernacle in the wilderness. They had no food, but they built a smelting furnace to melt the gold they used to make the objects for the tabernacle. It was a ridiculous enterprise to undertake in the middle of the wilderness in a survival camp for more than a million people. But they did it.

I have reasons, good ones, to just get by, to not try, to accomplish little. But I desire to write songs, to write words, to worship, to read my Bible, to fellowship with God and humans, to have a home that welcomes my husband, to educate and disciple my children, to have a healthy body, to obey God and be a faithful wife, mother, friend, and steward. So even though I have many reasons to sit on my couch and just be a lump, I will endeavor to get a move on and be the person I believe I'm called to be. There are obstacles to overcome, but they are just that, and not reasons to give up, and overcome them, I will.