Heaven is Under-rated

Whirlwind day yesterday- finished the last practice sessions of Science Olympiad for the State Contest in 2 weeks, sneaking in a guitar lesson between the 3 practice sessions of Experimental Design, Helicopter, and Trebuchet flinging. Asherel takes her end of year test today, so I gathered and laid out all the supplies she will need. It is the standardized high-school ACT and she has to be there early in the morning for which we are all silently cursing and gnashing our teeth. We continued studying and practicing for her AP tests in 3 weeks, and I started transcribing some of Comer's WW2 adventures onto my manuscript. Finally, I settled down with a glass of wine, as the crickets began to murmur in the night, and looked over the wedding photos from Vegas. Honeybun, drugged on Benadryl for her allergies, snored on the couch. Lucky crawled up beside her, grunted and lay down.

This is a good gig I have going here, I thought.

I don't often feel contentment. I usually feel harried. But when the end is in sight of a long, hard season, I almost always feel peace. Summer is almost here.

As I took my Science Olympiad team out for Rita's Custard last night, I asked Ben if he was looking forward to the end of school.
"I am looking forward to the summer," he said, "Summer is underrated."
"Oh no it isn't," I laughed, "We rate summer very highly, don't we Asherel?"
"That's what I mean, it is underrated."
"Oh, you mean you cannot rate it highly enough?"
"Exactly."
My sentiments too.
Resting after hard work feels indescribably good. It just feels lazy however if the hard work doesn't precede it. Summer would not feel so good it there wasn't winter.

Perhaps that is why God seems to feel the need to make us struggle so much. He promises us a rest, an eternal place of contentment and repose for the faithful. But He also expects us to undergo many trials before we get there. I suppose it is a good system...since He designed it, it has to be....but I don't much enjoy the frenzy preceding the rest. I guess I just need to keep in mind where it is all leading, I thought, as I smiled at the two dogs now snoring in tandem. Heaven is under-rated.

Hebrews 12:1-3, 7, 11-13, 22, 28
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe



-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org