Tip of My Iceberg

Shopping is a word that often brings fear and trembling to my very bones. I’ve never enjoyed it; I’m neither a fashionista nor one who loves to browse. Shopping is a necessary activity when something is required. Like food or gifts.

Two of my daughters and I headed to our local Target to purchase some needed clothing and a few gifts. With four grands who delight in shopping. When one enters this particular Target, there is a Starbucks intentionally located right inside the door where shoppers can pause and load up on drinks with too many options before moving through the aisles with a sugar high that will urge them to buy still more.

Of course we stopped. Kolly doesn’t drink coffee, but that didn’t stop the other three from getting their sugar fix. To be fair, Kolly got a cookie.

This was not my mom’s shopping experience.

The caffeine/sugar stimulus impacts adults differently than children. The three of us older folks had a mission we wanted to accomplish. The four younger shoppers wanted to try on everything. Our two eight-year olds wanted matching something, from shoes to headbands, from shirts to pajamas. Kolly got into the spirit by trying on shoes mostly that didn’t fit but were fun to clomp around in.

I wish I could say I was able to laugh my way through this. I did for a little while, but the shoes in the aisles, the heartfelt desires of grands I wanted to please and encourage, and the length of time we were there wore me down. I’m a flexible person, more go-with-the-flow than following hard and fast rules.

I was yearning for rules.

We all at times find ourselves in over our heads, when we’ve agreed to too much or have filled our calendars without considering the costs to ourselves. It’s not hard to do in a society where our value is so often measured by our productivity. You do more, you must be amazing. The exhaustion factor is never figured in.

The question that comes up frequently is “What was I thinking?”

When Jesus was coming to the end of His earthly life, He had encouraged many but had also made enemies among the religious leaders. He knew His time on earth was coming to an end; Jesus also was aware that one of His own disciples would betray Him to the authorities, something He’d known when He chose Judas to join the twelve.

All the complaints and defamation He’d experienced during His ministry was nothing compared to what was to come. Jesus chose to be give His life for people so they wouldn’t have to go through the punishment required for the wrongs we all do. To enter a perfect heaven and be in the presence of a perfect God, we’d have to be perfect.

We’re not.

Because He loved us so much, Jesus chose to pay the punishment we deserve. He was crucified on the cross, the worst of the Roman methods of executions, amid the mocking of soldiers and religious leaders.

The night before, however, was a challenge.

Jesus and His men went up to the garden of Gethsemane, and He asked the men to pray while He had some time to pray Himself.

“He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if You are willing, PLEASE take this cup of suffering away from Me.’” Luke 22:41-42a.

In His total humanity, He didn’t want the suffering He was about to go through. Not out of fear but knowing what it would cost Him.

“‘Yet I WANT Your will to be done, not Mine.’” Luke 22:42b.

Being completely Man and God, He felt our pain and suffering; He fully understood what it means to hurt inside and out. But He loved us enough to be willing to take on that horrific burden to give us the option of full forgiveness.

I may have questioned my intelligence in taking four kids to a super-sized store. I’m limited in my capabilities in so many areas.

Jesus has no limitations. He genuinely didn’t want the pain He would suffer in His humanity, but He never hesitated in doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves,

How does such love impact you?