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I think Christianity did us a disservice when the default answer to “how are you?” became”blessed and highly favored”.

Now, I understand not everyone is a safe place for our deepest thoughts and emotions, but at some point in the nineties and oughts, church culture bought heavily into the lie that being a christian meant you should never struggle, or that you were somehow too blessed to be stressed.

It’s funny, how often I still subconsciously fall back into that belief pattern. I somehow, somewhere, still believe that that two things cannot be true at the same time.

I cannot both be blessed and grateful for _______, and stressed, frustrated, broken because of ________.

A year ago this week, Erin and I packed up our life and moved to Oklahoma. And the list of ways the Lord has moved for us has been nothing short of mind-blowing.

• I had no idea what size moving trucks to get. I felt we were supposed to get something specific, so we did. Our stuff fit, just. Front to back, bottom to top, completely full. No extra space, nothing left behind.
• Our house in St. Louis was 60+ years old and while we’d taken great care of it, there was still work to be done and we fully expected the buyer to ask for concessions. Our realtor said that in her decades of selling houses, she’d only once seen a buyer not ask for any concessions or repairs. And it was for the sale of our house.
• Our realtor in Oklahoma said the 20yr old home we were purchasing passed all the inspections better than most new-build houses.
• We’d been here two months when our oven died (on Thanksgiving). We called the repairman, and GE treated the issue like we’d just bought the oven. No charge for the repair, and they instituted a full warranty.
• Our AC had issues just after we moved in. Covered by a warranty.
• We expected our house payment to increase $$$ this month because of the jump in property taxes. It increased $4.

I could go on.

We are blessed. We truly are. And Oklahoma is becoming home.

We are also tired, and homesick, and still grieving a city that was home for nearly a decade.

Both of those sentences are true. Neither cancels the other out.

Earlier this week Erin and I discussed how we feel we’re still on some grand journey, some adventure. And while we don’t really know where we’re going, He keeps showing us He is trustworthy.

I cannot help but think about the Israelites and their journey from Egypt to the promise land. While it was about taking them from Egypt to their new home, it was also about taking them from seeing God as a far off deity, to a God who was desperate to know His people and for His people to know Him.

Was the journey hard? Yes. Were the Israelites blessed? Yes.

Two things, true, at the same time.

If we’ve learned anything this year, I think it’s that we were designed to hold space for both of those things.

We were designed to walk through hard things and find favor and blessing.

We were designed to BE the favor and blessing to others who are walking through hard things.

It’s easy to believe when things are going well, the money is flowing, your circle is tight, family is healthy and your car is working fine.

It’s entirely different when things are broken, when health is at risk or the finances are shaky, when your circle is far away or your job isn’t stable.

The greatest journey the Israelites went on wasn’t fleeing Egypt, it wasn’t just the path towards the promise land, but the journey from the belief of a distant and disinterested God to a God who cares about us enough to meet us in the mundane and the monumental. To meet a God who cares about malfunctioning ovens, and cross-country moves.

We chose the hard thing, and we’ve met the God of the hard, and the God of the good. Circumstances may change, but He doesn’t. And maybe, knowing that truth, is the whole idea.