Baggage. It's everywhere. Get used to it.

Jonathan and I have a lot of baggage. Four marriages,  nine kids, four divorces, living in a war zone, living with cancer, PostTraumaticStressDisorder ( both of us, although mine is non-military related ), family goofiness, you name it. A lot of baggage. 

We also have a lot of luggage. Gorilla boxes, old garment bags, suitcases, duffles, military gear -- a lot of stuff.  Jon works overseas and recently had to get an ADDITIONAL passport because his was full. 

I have logged more air miles in the last three years than I did in the previous 43 cumulatively (including a trip to the Holy Land with my father once upon a time) traveling towards healing from cancer.  

Baggage. For the most part, we tend to handle it pretty well. Neither one of us enjoy hauling luggage around.

It's a pain, post-operative, or traveling alone after having chemo. 

It's a pain, hauling body armor around and waiting for Space-A flights that often take 24 hours to hop on to. It's just the way it is. You got stuff. It goes with you. You don't REALLY need it...you can always get more stuff. But it's your stuff, yours to lug along, for the journey. 

Occasionally, when we have money problems or a former spouse pops up like a bad penny, we have to carry that baggage again, momentarily, until we remember it needs to be stowed. 

Grief is like that. Initially it paralyzes you. It ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows until the tide recedes. Occasionally it resurfaces, and then goes out with the tide again. You never know when it will pop up. 

I remember a seemingly trivial occurrence, years after my dad left and moved abroad (AND disowned us), seeing someone put their cigar stub on the same flagstone that he used to, on a visit to the house. Daddy would come home, smoke his cigar for a few moments, then put it on that ledge and come in. In the morning he'd grab his remaining cig and head off again for another day. 

That person, repeating that small inconsequential action, had no idea it crushed me - almost physically - for a moment. 

That memory isn't baggage, in the psychobabble term. It's a memory. 

I don't think about it every second, but I remember that instance of grief, and years later, I'm grateful I can recall it vividly without the accompanying twinge. I'd have baggage if it caused me to write a manifesto... but I don't. I just have vivid memories...until someone says, "You've got a lot of baggage." " You've got a prolific amount of triggers that need to be healed." Then I find myself tucked into a ball on a chair, unable to react, the epic failures of my life dancing like skeletons around my heart. " Do you need counseling? " No. 

Do I have baggage?

Yeah, I do. Or... maybe I don't. Setting psychobabble aside, I have that particular gift of vivid memory that brings me back to certain events as though I'm still there. 

Yesterday a friend of mine, a Realtor back home, let me know that in the six-degrees-of-separation world that we live in these days, that she'd gotten a new listing right across the street from the high school we went to together. The house of my lifelong family friend, 'Aunt' Rose and her best friend of 54 years, 'Aunt Jo'. 

I practically grew up in that house. I learned to swim in the pool there, played in the cabanas out by the deck, chatted it up with the rabbi who lived across the street, shared confidences with Rose in the kitchen about love and life and faith, played poker with my sisters...wow. What a wondrous thing to have my high-school friend help a new family move into that wondrous place of happy memories.

Huh. I got tears in my eyes thinking of those happy days, and I wanted to run home and see the house before new furniture got into it, as though it would preserve it. Silly, sentimental, and sweet. 

Last weekend I got tears in my eyes when I chanced to intersect with my past, evoking memories of someone I chose to be with in a less happier time. Huh. I wanted to run home at that time, too, and I did. Home is good. 

Am I a baby for wanting to run home? Maybe. Maybe not. Home is a safe place, especially when someone tries to force you to do something or be something you are not. 

Baggage? Yah, I have baggage. Who doesn't? Who doesn't have a junk drawer, a cluttered closet? Who doesn't have memories that evoke emotion??

Baggage isn't necessarily bad unless it's lost or thrown at someone. Triggers aren't necessarily bad. They remind us that we have been failures, epic in nature, but we have also been huge successes. 

When we take it on a journey, baggage can either be a burden or a comfort. 

The trappings and trailings of our memories, the poignant moments for good or for bad which make us get tears in our eyes are good for our souls. Sometimes, like that guy innocently leaving his cigar on the ledge, sometimes the tears punch us in the stomach for a minute. Sometimes, they bring back images of swimming with my sisters and being loved on by special people, and our hearts are warmed and soothed. Perhaps it's His way of keeping us strong. Lugging it along, stooping to sit on it and close it back up, heaving it into the rubbish bin on occasion, or lifting it gently, to be stored in a special place. 

Jonathan and I have a lot of baggage. We've brought it all home, together. 

We'll continue to sort it out, together -- sometimes closing it back up until it's time to unpack it  -- and either file it or pitch it. 

We believe that Jesus died on the cross so we don't have to drape ourselves in it, and feel guilty for it for the rest of our human lives, let alone for eternity. We believe that the sackcloth and ashes that we have each worn, on certain days of our lives, are only for those certain days. 

Jesus died for us, to turning our mourning into dancing. Jesus showed up on the planet to bring life...

...so God doesn't want us to forget about our past. It's part of who we are, part of where He's led us, how He's shaped our lives. If there are parts that were awful, so be it. It's forgiven by His death on the cross -- but just because it's forgiven by Jesus, for all time, doesn't mean it didn't happen.  

Like Jon's passport, when it gets full and tattered, we get another so there are clean pages to stamp. 

That's the passport to peace, the peace that passes understanding. That's Jesus.