The end of Holy Week is here, which is both a distraction and a challenge. Everything is rehearsed and prepared for tonight, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. This is always a weird time of the year for me -- I work so hard in the run-up, then it's essentially out of my control.
I've been thinking a lot about the Exodus story, since Passover is tomorrow. After the Israelites escape from slavery and cross the Red Sea into the desert, they pretty quickly start complaining that there's nothing to eat and wishing that they were back in Egypt. Think about that: they get uncomfortable, so they wish they were back in the land that forced them into slavery and slaughtered all their male children. The parallels for me are almost too obvious. It's been 43 days since I smoked my last cigarette. The craziness of the first days and weeks is over, I'm long past the physical withdrawal, I've extinguished plenty of use cues, and there are times that I'm almost content in my new skin. Yet sometimes I get strong yearnings to go back to smoking. I long for the old ways, the familiar patterns, the comfortable routines that were developed over two decades. But in reality, to go back to all of that is that to go back to slavery, to discomfort, to affliction, and finally to unpleasant ugly painful death. This desert really sucks sometimes, but it must be better than that. With God's help and your support, I'll keep putting one foot in front of the other and trust that the goal is worth it.
