Enjoying the Journey

I am a worrier. I always have been. So when I am asked to do something totally out of my comfort zone or that I am afraid of, imagine how magnified my worry gets!

I like to play “what if” in my head. What if something happens to one of my family members? What if something happens to me? What if someone gets sick? What if we have an accident? What if I am not a good parent? What if? What if? What if?

Recently, David was asked to go to Las Vegas for work. He asked me to join him since he would have a lot of down time. Worry immediately set in. I do not like to fly! I know statistically people will say it’s safer but I like my feet to be on the ground! I knew how much it would mean to him though. Yes, we will be traveling the weekend before. Yes, we will be traveling the weekend of, returning from the mountains just to catch a flight several hours later. Yes, the girls have school and our families are out of town. But yes, I need to go and I will go.  

As usual, God spoke to me exactly what I needed to hear. The first time he used my pastor. His sermon was titled “When God’s People Pray” and was out of Acts 12. Peter was put in prison to be killed to keep him from spreading the gospel. And what did Peter do? He slept! Now I know many nights I can’t sleep and it wasn't from being in prison. But Peter had faith. And like the pastor said, we don’t have to have perfect faith, just have to have faith. We can’t let Satan rob us of our joy.

He also used Lifeway’s Journey devotional magazine. The day we arrived my devotion was titled The Abundant Life.

“His Son came to give us life and life to the fullest (John 10:10). That abundant life starts here and now, and will only get better when we enter into eternity.”

It also goes on to say “Christians should be the first to enjoy this beautiful life God has given us because we have the hope of eternity in our hearts…….”

So yes I prayed for safe travels. But I also prayed to actually enjoy the opportunities to travel and take in all that God has created. And I am happy to report I actually did!

What will you do to enjoy the life God has given you?

God speaks through Candy Crush

Note: This was written a couple of years ago.

I love games. I always have. My younger brother got a Nintendo for his birthday way back when and I feel bad am happy to say I made it to the end, saving Princess Peach, before he did. And I didn’t even have the handy dandy internet to give me cheats and hints on how to do it. So with all the games on portable technology now, you can imagine how much fun I have!

I have to say, though, God can even use Candy Crush to speak to us. When it first came out, I LOVED to play this game and couldn’t believe once I used my 5 lives, I had to wait for more. I loved the game but I was not one to actually pay for more lives or pay to advance to another level.

I was so excited when I discovered that my virtual friends, as my husband calls my Facebook friends, could actually give me lives. I was even more excited when I realized I could hold on to them and save them. It took discipline but by being frugal, my lives little by little accumulated so I didn’t have to wait for them to be replenished. I was good about playing a few rounds and then moving on to something more productive. And if I happened to have “extra” time (which really means I was procrastinating something I really didn’t want to do), I could play more than 5 lives since I had some accumulated. Wahoo!

So imagine my horror when I went to open the app to play and discovered that all 60-something lives were GONE! What??? I have no idea what happened though it may have to do with playing the same account on more than one device.

How often do we try to save our earthly lives? Yes, we should take care of the bodies God has given us. However, we can sometimes obsess over this or in my case, not enjoy life because of “what could happen”. Even more importantly, do we save our lives for ourselves? Do we use our lives to do all the things we want to do instead of what God wants us to do?

Matthew 16:25 “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” NLT

And just so you know, I probably have hundreds of Candy Crush lives out there………I have moved on.