When I was walking Savannah, a woman said, “What a beautiful dog. If you ever want to get rid of her, I’ll take her.”

Would she want to redeem the baggage claim ticket; expensive veterinarian-approved food for irritable bowel disease; the clean up after her vomiting and diarrhea episodes; the $65 a box enzymes to sprinkle on her food every time she eats, the vet bills. Savannah is a beautiful blue mere rough collie—but she comes with baggage.

Recently someone viewed my Amazon Author’s Page and scrolled through the 29 books listed there and said, “I wish I had that many books on my author’s page.” But would she want to redeem the baggage claim ticket; 55 years of time, money and energy spent sending manuscripts out only to have them rejected; 43 years of working two and three jobs to support writing; neither owning nor watching a TV; money spent on a cover illustrator, editor, and special promos, hours spent every single day doing what most writers hate—marketing.

Success, however small, comes with baggage.

Husbands throw away years of marriage and family and children to follow a new face; wives throw away years of marriage and family and children for their dream guy, people move great distances in their searches for a better life.

The new face—sometimes with expensive, demanding tastes—must be fed, clothed, and lavished with attention; the dream guy snores at night and can be selfish, demanding and lazy, the perfect life is acquired through years of hard work, struggle, and delayed gratification.

Life comes with baggage.

When I was married to Luke’s dad, I used to paint billboards and signs with him. He loved the money we made, but deplored my messy hair and the paint on my clothes and under my fingernails. He fell in love with Jackie who didn’t work at all, wore expensive name brand clothes, lavished money on her hair and makeup—and was psychotic about spiders. If she saw a wiggle in a corner of a room and thought it was a spider—she would tear out of the room and nearly take the door off the hinges.

One day Larry and I were painting a sign some twenty feet off the ground. We had very little equipment—and none that would reach the sign which hung out over the street in a perpendicular angle to the building. So…I sat on one end of a plank to hold it down while Larry inched across the other end painting the sign. As he scooted along the board with the paintbrush, Larry extolled the beauty and excellence of Jackie and asked why I couldn’t be more like her.

Abruptly, a huge spider plopped down on my end of the board from the tree overhead. Only God knows how tempted I was to be more like Jackie.

There are no free rides in life. Everything comes with a cost.

Small wonder the Bible warns: “Do not covet.” Small wonder 1Timothy 6:6 instructs us: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”

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