Friend, Enjoy the Journey

Last Updated on March 20, 2018

Editor’s Note:  I am SO HAPPY to announce that Lisa Williams, the former morning DJ from KLOVE is joining us as a regular contributer for MomLife Today!  I met Lisa a few months ago by e-mail and then in person in March!  We hit it off so well that an instant desire to work together was birthed!  We have some exciting plans for an expanded MomLife Today ministry opportunity and we look forward to letting you hear more from Lisa on a regular basis!  Join with us in welcoming Lisa by leaving her a comment if you appreciate her becoming a part of MomLife Today or if you’d like to let her know how she ministered to you when she was at KLOVE!  Blessings to you all, Tracey!

Maybe you’ve seen it on a bumper sticker or poster.  Maybe it was on a t-shirt.  Maybe a pastor has said it to you in the middle of a sermon.  Maybe your grandma cross-stitched it on a pillow for you.

Or maybe you’ve said it sarcastically to yourself or your sister on a particularly difficult day.

Enjoy the journey!

I’d heard it for years.  I believed it.  I had said it to people.

But I wasn’t living it.

Saying it, believing it, and living it – not always synonymous.

Several years ago, during a particularly bad season in my life, I cracked and unloaded my whole barrel of pain on a friend.  There was a lot I was holding inside, placating myself with “everything is fine”.  But honestly, it wasn’t.

At the end of my verbal vomiting session, this friend simply said, “I don’t think you’re enjoying the journey.”

Uh, yep.

That revelation began a process of self-examination, revealing that, indeed, I was not enjoying the journey.  Even though I had the t-shirt.

I believe God showed me a mental video of me on a wild horse, tearing through a forest as fast as I could.  Suddenly I stopped the horse, slowly got off, and looked around.  There was an amazing river running through the forest.  I’d never seen it.  There was deep-green grass, vibrant flowers, a meadow just past the river – but I hadn’t seen any beauty.  I was just barreling though life as fast as I could, running from…

Pain?  Boredom?  Irrelevance?

For me, it was mainly pain.  And I had to look it straight in the face and find a path to healing.

Maybe for you it’s just too full of a plate.  Maybe it’s that daily list that never gets any shorter:   Write your mom, find a new dentist, catch up on laundry, replace the carpet, start eating healthy (again), plant flowers, invite friends for dinner,  donate old clothes, buy new clothes for kids – oh it goes on and on and on and on.

Don’t let the list strangle your joy.

So yes, I know you’ve probably already heard it.  But almost every day, I have to remind myself again.  When I get irritated with my sons because they’re too whiney, too loud, too demanding, too whatever – and they are impeding me from getting my oh-so-important agenda done for the day –

I stop.  I smile.  I take a deep breath.  And on the inside I slowly say, “Lisa, enjoy the journey.”

Then my horse stops and I look into my boys’ giant brown eyes.  I see their precious little hand and their tender, sweet faces.  I look deeply into their open hearts longing for my attention more than anything.

It’s a choice.  An important, life altering choice…

Friend, enjoy the journey.