Day Twenty-One: Bee Stings

Thoughts

Oct 21

I got stung by a bee today. No, not this one:

And actually it was several bees stinging me, not just one. I've never been stung by a bee before, so it was an exciting first time experience. Unfortunately, in this case, I mean "exciting" in the negative sense, not the positive. But, silver lining: none of the kids got stung.

I was stung by the aforementioned evil bees because, I assume, the kids and I ate oranges at lunch and I didn't wash my hands afterwards. All that lingering orange juice must have been too much for those sucky stingers to resist.

I also ate this salad at lunch because I'm morally supporting the Man by doing the whole30:

That's not an important part of the story, though. Back to the important part of the story, you should know that I was only at the bee-infested playground because I was meeting up with a neighbor because this building relationships thing is evidently super important.

Okay, now that you have that long and incredibly exciting (this time in the positive sense, not the negative) backstory, I'll make my succinct and extremely obvious point.

When we enter into seasons of change in our life (whether by choice or by chance), there will be pain--most if it will be worse than bee stings--because it is impossible to go through the between without some form of discomfort.

You don't move from one place to another without a few broken plates (or in my case, a broken wreath). You don't start a new job without the discomfort of new relationships and that sinking feeling that you're never going to figure out your new duties. You don't revamp your workout without sore muscles or start a new eating plan without a sugar crash or grumbling belly (Whole30 may break me--where are my carbs, people?!). You don't start a marriage or a family without some relational bumps in the road.

Change is painful.

It's putting yourself out there, risking everything, with the hope that once you get through that season of between, things will be better on the other side.

Will they be? Who knows. We hope so.

Regardless, you will be. You will be stronger, wiser, gentler because of the challenges you've faced and the pain you've endured.

And who knows, maybe those bee stings will help you be a little more sympathetic down the line when someone else gets stung.