In my last post I promised to include this in my next post, not realizing that it would be so long after Easter. So here it is:
Our children quickly learned that there is a candy jar in the bishop's office, so we always know where to find them after church.
On Easter morning before church Jacob and Emma got to see their baskets filled with candy and other gifts. They also saw a few of the candy-filled eggs that were hiding in the living room, and the bowls of jellybeans that were set out for our family dinner guests later in the day. We reminded the kids that the candy was for later, and they handled that with admirable patience.
After church they headed for the bishop's office. Jacob ran into his dad on the way there, and asked if it was okay to get a piece of candy. Jared made him a deal. He reminded Jacob that we already had a lot of candy at home, and said that Jacob could choose to have one piece of the bishop's candy - BUT - it would cost him all of the Easter candy that we have at home. Suddenly Jacob was happy to turn around and head for the car instead.
It was a cute Jacob story, but we saw the obvious life parallel of choosing between short-term and the long-term opportunities. While the cancer glasses give an enhanced eternal perspective, any adversity can create its own temporal distractions (such as fear) that can be costly relative to the opportunities before us. Part of 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4 comes to mind:
"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body...For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
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