Truckin’

I started writing this Friday night, and actually had about two paragraphs written already. Alas my train of thought kept getting knocked off track and, since I couldn’t get that train rollin’ back around to pick it up again, I figured it just wasn’t the one I was really supposed to hop.  Instead, I just let my daughter talk my ear off about nothing that mattered to me, other than the fact that sometimes our kids, even our teens, just want to know that we’ll take a moment to listen…about the dumbest things.

I’d catch another train eventually…no use in sweating it.  Especially when the entire week had gone off without too many hitches.  I’ve been trying to unhitch myself from a lot of the things going on in my life, surrendering it to God, and just letting him show me the way, give me my day, and go where I can with it.

There’s stumbling blocks, obstacles, detours, pitfalls, torn maps, and enemies all through life, and those of us who try our hardest to follow a life of Christ, a life of value and morals, seem to get hit with a lot of the above backfires.  Tests and trials, “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” same old stuff that we get tired of dealing with…but it makes us who we are.  It’s all in how we deal with each situation before us!  We can either jump off the train of life/spiritual progression and let the situation claim what we and our lives are going to be, or we can keep riding and see where it takes us, each day something new and capable of taking us new places.  Yeah, it gets demanding, worrisome at times…if you falter on your faith in that Great Conductor, but He’s the one that laid the tracks for you in the first place.  Who better to know where you should be?  And most importantly, where you should be going?  We just can’t worry so much about how long it takes to get there, or the route it takes, or how many stops and changes we have to make. The journey, and all that comes with it, is there for us to improve ourselves before we get to our stop, be it the need to re-evaluate ourselves, our lives, our jobs, our homes, our friends, our values and morals, our finances, our habits, etc.  It’s not necessarily a fun journey, but depending on where you decide to get off, it could be totally worth it.  And don’t forget to enjoy the view!

A few days back, the song “Truckin'” by Grateful Dead came on my HimP3 player.  I know it mentions a few things that don’t seem too Christ-like, but if you lived in my brain, you’d know how easy it is to think of God as cocaine!  Besides…it’s all about the message!  There’s always tomorrow, don’t forget to look around, and just keep truckin’ on!

My week started off not so great, stress from our daughter came like a punch to the gut first thing.  We handled it, handed out punishment, and surrendered the rest for her to be accountable for.  And then…we kept truckin’!  Everywhere we seemed to look, except in our bank accounts, it was a beautiful day.  We spent a good amount of time with my mama-in-law this week, I won fourteen dollars at Bingo at the senior community, I was able to get my meds again, we spent time at a social event/dance at the senior community, we helped out a couple people at the same place, we’ve enjoyed all of our time together, and despite our daughter’s punishment, she hasn’t been giving us too many problems.  Of course, there is a lot more to tell…many blessings, many good and just fun or nice things we were part of, but to sum up a week of goodness is hard to do right now, as I’m a little wiped out from an early asthma attack.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what blessings and what good/nice things we did, it matters that there were plenty of them, and made for many beautiful days.  The best part of it, was that each day, as I woke, I prayed for it to be such just by my mere surrender to what was going to come of it.  Yes, I stumbled a few times in emotion and stress, but I’m human, imperfect, me…and God loves me, and I love Him. 

Thank you, Lord, for our beautiful days…even when we don’t see them as being possible!