Our living room, while it served as an office, a classroom, and on some occasions a dining room every other day, was transformed into my favorite place in the world for just a few hours each week, a sanctuary where love lived and thrived. Even during the school year and the holiday season and when everyone was at their busiest, my parents still managed to reserve that most coveted of evenings to spend together as a family.
I remember the long nights we spent watching movies and eating our weight in popcorn, building forts out of my grandma's old quilts, eating ice-cream sandwiches and getting the foamy chocolate caked onto our fingers, playing Mario Bros. on the Super Nintendo before "graphics" and "high-definition" were even conceptually relevant terms, waiting until mom went to bed to watch "big kid" movies like Indiana Jones and Terminator with dad.
Looking back now, I cherish those memories, those tiny swirls of vibrance that detailed my childhood. Even now as adulthood dilutes that essence with its stream of gray, those bursts of youthful color reinvigorate me.
Friday night was where I could find happiness and dwell in it. Friday night served as insulation that protected me from the world, from the disappointments, from the expectations, the deception, the bullies, the fear.
It doesn't work like that anymore though. It stopped working that way a long time ago.
The calendar remained vigilant, gifting seven days each and every week. But while the time between Fridays never changed, the time between those Friday nights got longer with the passing of the years.
That's just like life, isn't it? Simplistic in origin, but ever growing, ever complicating.
For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why God would make us in such a way that our timeline is one of declination. In Isaiah 48, He promises to teach us and direct us in the way we should go, so why the heck would He make it so increasingly difficult as we age to achieve childlike happiness in our lives?
Then, it hit me. Every new day is a battle. Although we may put on our armor and lock emotion away, "have thick skin" as some suggest, every day that armor takes damage. It dents with each demeaning blow from a boss or coworker, it cracks under the strain of a loved one with cancer, it rusts in the rains of depression, and when we're at our weakest, it can and it will break.
As a child with so few days on this earth, so few battles waged, I delighted in God's blessings and rejoiced because I felt His love through my family. As an adult, I've faced quite a bit more than that little boy in snuggled up to his daddy in a blanket fort. These eyes have strained from fighting tears and from yearning for sleep. Every scar and stress line etched into my skin tells a story of pain. I need more than a weekend with my family to handle all that life is throwing my way. I've grown weary trapped in this world that is not my home...but, praise God, I don't have to struggle alone.
"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)
And therein lies the secret to a colorful life, one of excitement and continually renewed happiness in an ever-worsening world, in an increasingly difficult life. Sharing the weight. We weren't created to go in alone, to "tough it out" because we think we're strong enough. We're called...actually, we're invited to cast our cares upon Him, invited to find relief and peace where there seems to be none.
And as for me? I'm RSVPing to that party.
