Choose Your Hard

“Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later” is a quote I heard somewhere and ever since then, I’ve realized just how much of life that applies to. More than just a catchy phrase, this has become a perspective shift for me. Realizing that this can be applied to nearly every aspect of my life was a surprising realization that has since impacted how I view “hard” things. This also reminds me of a passage in the Bible that has to do with the wide, easy way and the hard, narrow way. The more I embrace the hard now and put in the work now, the easier it will be down the road. My future self will either be very grateful that my current self chose the hard now, or my future self will look back and regret that I chose the easy now because that will force my future self into the hard.

Losing my dad caused me to reevaluate how I was choosing to live. To take a hard look at how I was choosing to eat, my level of activity, my goals, my life, and figure out if I was heading down the path that I wanted to or not in each of those areas. I realized that there were areas in my life that weren’t getting the attention that they needed because I thought that change was too “hard” and that made it okay for me to avoid it — I was wrong. Change is hard, but so is continuing down a path that isn’t leading to life — I just had to choose my hard. I realized that the foods I was eating weren’t serving my body well, so I began to change them. It was hard at first, but it’s significantly easier now that it has been almost seven months of consistency. I continue to learn and make decisions about food, exercise, and health because I want to do the hard work now. I’ve often told Marc that I don’t want to be unhealthy when I’m older because of poor choices I’m making now, but until about seven months ago I wasn’t even attempting to change the poor choices. Continuing to eat however I wanted was “easy” in the moment, but I knew that it would lead to “hard” down the road because eventually it would catch up with me. Same goes for exercise which is another change that I need to make now — even though it’s hard. “Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later.”

A few months after my dad passed away, Marc and I began going to marriage counseling once a month. We didn’t have anything in particular that we were going for except to learn how to communicate well now, so that we didn’t end up in marriage counseling down the road for something serious. We decided to be proactive instead of reactive as much as we could. It has been one of the best decisions that we’ve made for our marriage because it has allowed us to work on things now while they’re still in the “baby” stage — as they come up — as opposed to waiting until we’re barely hanging on or something like that. Weeds are easy to pull when their tiny — sometimes they’re “easy” to pull when they’re big, but then they disturb a lot of the ground around them which isn’t the case with small weeds. We’re choosing the hard work now, so that down the road we can look back on our young married selves and be grateful that they chose to put the work in early. I’m not saying that marriage is easy, I just believe that it can be so good when both the husband and wife are willing to work at it. “Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later.”

The repetitive nature of redirection and discipline in the early years of parenting is hard. To remain consistent and actually get up when you say you’re going to even though you just sat down for what feels like the first time that day is hard. Remaining calm in the midst of chaos and being humble enough to work on your own problems in order to be the best mom or dad that you can be is hard, but when we choose the “easy” way — that of passivity in parenting, for example — we’ll regret it down the road. I know for a fact that I cannot be a perfect mama; however, I also know that I can be a humble, God-honoring, loving, consistent, mama that chooses the hard work now for the benefit of my children and my family. My future self — and prayerfully my children in the future — will look back on my current self and be grateful that I chose to do the hard work during the early years of motherhood. I pray that I don’t choose the “easy” path now because I know it will lead to hard later on. “Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later.”

Each of these relationships — with myself, my marriage, and my motherhood — all ride on the biggest, most important relationship in my life, my relationship with Jesus. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says, “‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.'” The “easy” road — not following Jesus — leads to death. The “hard” road — following Jesus — leads to life. I don’t know about you, but I want to be on the path of life! I want to put in the hard now because I want to be counted among the “few” that find that narrow path and stay on it. I want to be like the servant in Matthew 25:21 whose master says, “…’Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'” Following Jesus is hard here on earth, but it will be easy to praise Him in eternity and when I get to the end of my earthly life, I pray that I look back on my life with gratitude for the hard work of following Jesus that I did. “Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later.”

I hope that this all made sense in the way that I intended it to. There are always choices for us to make and more often than not, the choice will boil down to if we want to go through the “hard” now or later. We don’t get to choose if the hard will come, but sometimes we get to choose when the hard comes — now or later. I know that there are accidents and unexpected situations all the time, so I’m not being naive or trying to say that we always get to choose when we go through hard things — I know full well that that isn’t the case. My point is that all too often we choose the easy way “now” and think it’ll be easy forever, but that isn’t typically the case. Everything comes at a price in some capacity, it’s up to each of us to choose what we want to spend our time, energy, money, resources, emotions — our lives — on. Being healthy is hard, being unhealthy is hard — choose your hard. Marriage is hard, divorce is hard — choose your hard. Parenting your children well is hard, not parenting your children well is hard — choose your hard. Stewarding your finances well is hard, not stewarding your finances well is hard — choose your hard. Following Jesus is hard, following the world is hard — choose your hard. Is it hard to put in the work and effort now to become the best, most God honoring version of yourself you can possibly be? Absolutely! “Hard now, easy later; easy now, hard later.”

What is something hard that you’re choosing to do now?

Song(s) of the Week: This week I chose “Well Done” by The Afters! Enjoy!