20130327-200713.jpgI love vacation. I love the anticipation of a new adventure. This may sound crazy, but I love packing for vacation! There’s something about neatly tucking stuff away in a suitcase in preparation for an exciting journey. But as exciting as it is to load all that stuff into the suitcase, it is just as awful to unpack it. The journey is over…the time has come to do some unpacking. It’s tempting to just leave it all in the suitcase, and I will admit that I have done that after a vacation for a few days…trying to put off the dreadful task.

Recently I’ve faced the reality that emotions have to be unpacked to. They are pretty easy to pack away, but they can’t stay in the suitcase forever…eventually they have to come out. Unpacking emotions -past hurts, fears, memories – is a daunting task. But you can’t live out of a suitcase for the rest of your life. Day to day, life can seem good…can actually be really good, but that baggage is still there and emotions can and will unexpectedly surface.

For the better part of my life I have not been one to tackle things head on. Rather, I chose to stick my head on the sand and wait for things to pass (or hope they would ). Rather than dealing with hurts and emotions as they came along, I would neatly pack them away…for some other time. As I seek God more and more to guide my life, I know that I can no longer function in a healthy way by packing things away. So, as I go through the process of on covering layers of “stuff” I am learning so many things. First, I’m learning to seek and rely on the Spirit to navigate me through the unpacking process. I’m also learning to trust that where God takes me, He will give me what I need to become the person He created me to be. If God is telling me to unpack these past hurts and emotions, then He is going to teach me and help me grow along the way. As He helped me unpack, He is creating more room for me to be filled with His love and hHis Spirit.

The unpacking part of this trip may not be the best part of the journey, but I know that it’s a necessary step along the way and I’m certain that it will be rewarding…living out of my suitcase is no longer an option.