The Spamily Experience

Whatever our season of life, it offers its own opportunities and challenges for spiritual growth. Instead of wishing we were in another season, we ought to find out what this one offers. John Ortberg


I find this quote particularly interesting since my brief experience with spamily. My experience was so enlightening that I was inspired to create a new word for it. Spamily - a network of relationships that resemble family, but the memebers are not related by blood or marriage. Like Spam is not meat; James, Hannah and I are not actually related. But like Spam that has it's own recipe books and conventions; they call me "Aunt." That's spamily!

I was pretty curious to see what it was like on what I see so often as greener grass. Realizing, of course, that an essential element was missing from the picture. But also remembering that in my line of work that that essential element is often traveling hither and yon. Nonetheless, the transformation from curiosity to complaining about the constant reappearing stack of dirty dishes happened so much faster than I ever expected. And that is when this quote hit me like a ton of bricks. I wonder if I really learned all that God wanted me to through this experience. Does that mean I will have to repeat it?