It's Gonna Be Worth It

I don't understand your ways

but I will give you my song

give you all of my praise

you hold on to my pain

with it you are pulling me closer

pulling me into your ways

now around every corner 

and up every mountain 

I'm not looking for crowns 

or the water from fountains 

I'm desperately seeking, frantic believing 

that the sight of your face 

is all that I'm needing 

I will say to you.... 

it's gonna be worth it all 

I believe this

(Rita Springer, Worth It All, 2002)

There is a long list of things that I find unpleasant about making my home in an urban, overpopulated, polluted, developing country with comparatively marginal human rights on the opposite side of the world from where I grew up. But I can deal with the things on that list, most of the time. They're trivial, really.

I find just one challenge in our current position that trumps all others, and it is this: missing our family.

We long to visit our parents every now and then, drop off the grandkids at their house for a weekend, and see our brothers (got 7) and sisters (got 4). It aches to miss joyful times, but even this is bearable, because we are comforted knowing that they're together, well, and happy. It's much harder to be absent during painful times -- to be unable to share in the grief and struggle of the people you love the most. 

I think I can endure the separation, however. 

"Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land—whatever—because of me and the good news will lose out. They'll get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land—but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life." (Mk 10, The Message, see also Mt 19)

See what he's saying here? He promised that it's gonna be worth it. He sees us, he knows it hurts and troubles us, and he knows what we gave up, give up, continuously. Yet we've already seen the beginnings of the multiplication he mentioned. I don't know exactly what kind of rewards he's got in mind, but if the reward is him, I'm in, and I can endure.