Shopping Carts and Rebel Hearts

Hello all...and I imagine "all" in this instance consists of maybe three people haha. Its been a very long time since I posted, for that I am sorry to everyone who really wants to see posts. Its been a combination of things that's kept me off blogger...haven't really felt like it, been tired when I've gotten home from work, too busy, etc. I have many ideas I want to post about, but right now will just be this one.

Everyone has had to deal with the shopping carts at the grocery store. Sometimes they work fine, just gliding along down between the racks, nice and straight. Then sometimes you get stuck with the cart that has a bum wheel. You're pushing it along and all of a sudden the cart just veers to the left right into the display of cake mix thats on sale this week. You sigh and heave it back to where it was supposed to be and next thing you know it veers to the right directly into the sauerkraut. Now I don't know of any stores that have cake mix and sauerkraut in the same isle, but bear with me. You look down as you're pushing it, and there it is, the culprit. One of your wheels is all tangled up with bits of string, tape, and God knows what else, and is seized up tight. The other is just spinning around uselessly in a happy little circle, dumdy dumdy dum, not touching the floor at all and certainly not helping you. And you realize, that this particular shopping trip is really going to exercise your upper arms. And your patience.

Many times I feel like my heart behaves like one of those blasted shopping carts. It goes where it wills. It never stays on a straight path, and it seems never to go where I want it to go. It is a rebel. I'm always having to heave to put it on the path it belongs, but soon enough, I'm veering to the right or to the left again. It fluctuates between feelings of great piety and stark emptiness. It becomes happy and sad for hundreds of different reasons, and becomes discouraged rather easily. Worse, it wants what it wants when it wants it, and anything less than this is perceived as a grave injustice. And here am I, trying to wrest my heart back. It is very tiresome sometimes.

Now imagine this. You're in a grocery store, and you are the manager. And EVERY shopping cart in your store has a bum wheel. Every cart is veering. And not only into walls, but into other carts. I can imagine this would be quite frustrating. As manager, you have the power and resources to requisition new equipment whenever it is needed. It would be simple just to order replacement carts, newer, better ones.

Now imagine a manager who instead of getting new carts, decides to keep the ones he has. And actually cares about each individual cart enough to repair it and fix it. And even though they veer, he keeps on using them. And somehow, manages to get everything in the store done perfectly. That would have to be a near omnipotent manager. In fact, I think you might have to be omnipotent to pull of that particular task!

And so here I am, my heart a recalcitrant shopping cart. And yet, that is no obstacle at all for the great manager of this store.