(Enough and Then Some- From Nica Blog)

"You're going to carry this thing around with you everywhere. You're going to eat with it, sleep with it, do ministry with it..."

On Tuesday in class, I looked at Charles Kaye with an astounded look on my face. REALLY? Sleep with a backpack filled with 4 rocks larger than my fist? I thought maybe he was joking at first... but no. So from Tuesday til Friday, these backpacks became our constant companions. We had them with us when we woke up til we went to sleep. Some of my teammates teach a couple of soccer teams down here as a ministry and they had to go to soccer practice with rocks on their backs. A couple of our ministries down here are with children and we had to chase them and play them with uncomfortable backpacks on. It became normal to walk into our kitchen and see everyone sitting around with backpacks, looking like they were planning to go somewhere. The first day especially we all caught ourselves asking each other "Where are you going?" when the person simply walked past us with their backpack on. It really frustrated us at first. However, after awhile, I'll admit that the backpack became more comfortable, more easy to work with, less annoying. And that was what hit me the most about the exercise:

Sin, when it first enters your life, is uncomfortable. You struggle with it alot, it's always on your mind, it seems to be this weight that just buries you. However, as time goes on, if that sin isn't dealt with and gotten rid of, it will become more and more a part of your life. You will find a way to make it comfortable, to make it not as bothersome. And that's the problem- when the sin becomes comfortable. And I know that the sins I had in my backpack, the ones I had been carrying around for 4 days were those sins that I had let become comfortable in my life. It made me stop and think about each of those sins and really wonder why they were in my life in the first place. We found that sins come back to a lack of trust in God. We don't really trust Him to take care of us, even though He promises to in the Bible. (Actually, one of my rocks was "trust". I knew that I struggle with trusting people and so to realize that it is the root of most sins was interesting.)

So we're lugging these rocks around for 4 days. And there were times where we got really frustrated, annoyed and even mad about it. But in the end it was totally worth it. On Friday in class, Charles told us that we could give up these sins whenever we felt we had dealt with them. Whenever we felt it was time. During the last song, I took my backpack off and then once the song was over we all went outside and got rid of the rocks however we wanted to. I threw mine down an old well that has a cover over it- it would be impossible for me to go get those rocks now and that's how I feel about my sin. Not that I'll never struggle with them again, simply that I refuse to let them control me. And again, I was reminded that God's grace is enough and then some :-)

(written 11/23/2008)