All the detours are good, though its hard to see the good in all of them...
Think about your life over the past few months... has everything gone exactly as you had planned? Doubtful... but has it all 'turned out'? maybe.... or maybe not or maybe not yet... (by the way, please read the book 'you can't get to heaven in a straight line' by Marvin Phillips...)
Three months ago, our oldest was transferring from York College to Harding for her sophomore year, resigned to not playing collegiate basketball again... then a guy from a recruiting service called out of the blue and said the coach from Williams Baptist needed a post player and had some scholarship money to offer....
roller coaster... exciting and scary and frustrating and fun all at the same time!
When the coach made her offer, it was not enticing enough for Cait to accept, so the plan was back on for HU! (that's a very abbreviated, drama-less version of how we got to today!) ...detour...
then, on a MUCH more serious note, my big brother was injured badly in a motorcycle accident...
more roller coaster... scary and scarier. (Greg is at home recovering - slowly but surely...thank you all for your prayers!)
that's just a couple examples... you probably have a hundred just like 'em...
Cassie has taught me something HUGE over the past few years... you see, she LOVES roller coasters... (me and Cara share her affinity for the fast twisty-turny things, by the way)... anyhow, what I have learned has taken a while to fully manifest itself to me (the lesson started 5 years ago at DisneyWorld on "Tower of Terror")... but it crystalized last year when we were at Silver Dollar City.
They have this very cool coaster called Powder Keg, which shoots you at 700 miles per hour (ok, I dunno, but it's fast) out of the gate and turns you sideways and drops you 10 stories (I'm getting sweaty palms just describing it!)... ok, to the point: I have a picture of the first time Cassie rode it... it is a photo of her in the coaster car with Cara, white-knuckled and wailing! petrified and NOT happy!
then I have a picture of Cass on the very same ride - taken two minutes later (those high speed kind they take during a negative 9G turn, where it looks like your face is falling off, then charge you $20 to take home with you) smiling and squealing with sheer delight! You know what she said to me as we were getting off the ride? "Daddy, let's do it again!"
the point? turns and twists are scary and unplanned and hard on you and nerve-wracking... but if we embrace them (and look for His plan, though we cannot always see it), we will learn to enjoy the ride...
so here's the lesson: I gotta learn to live in Him and with confidence in His will... and that's hard for a control freak like me... but the older I get, the more clearly I can see. I am nowhere near 'there' yet, but my vision is improving... if perfect vision is 20/20, then I must be somewhere near 20/300 by now... but that's a vast improvement upon 'legally blind', which is where I have been for most of my life! (OK, even I'm tired of the metaphor now!)
so, trust in Him... simple! but like most simple things, it is not as easy as just saying it....
I like the way Christian artist FFH puts it on the first cut from their 'Still the Cross' CD:
You take the wheel - I will work the radio...
You take the wheel - We'll go where You want to go
You take the wheel - Take it fast, take it slow
Whatever you choose I'm fine...
You drive, I'll ride - You drive, I'll ride
may God bless us all as we remember who is at the wheel!
No comments:
Post a Comment