Learning Through Life's Loops

This picture of Cedar Point's Corkscrew is found here.

Tomorrow is a day I have been looking forward to for over a year. It has been at least ten years, I think, since I have visited Cedar Point, one of the very best amusement parks in the world. Seven members of my family are going. I am looking forward to spending time with them.

I am also very much looking forward to the roller coasters. Of all the roller coasters I have ever ridden in my life, I think there is only one I haven't liked. (I won't mention the name of that one here, though.) 

Cedar Point's Mantis - image found here

I thoroughly enjoy the excitement of being taken to the top of a hill and then plunged at high speed down the other side. You say goodbye to your stomach at the top of the hill, and it catches up to you at then platform at the end of the ride. Once you're strapped into the car and it starts to move, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Scary? Yes. 
Exhilarating? Definitely!

There are other rides at the amusement park.

• Rides like the carousel. Tame. Predictable. Safe. 
• Rides like the ferris wheel. True, you have to deal with being pretty high up, but still, much tamer than a rollercoaster.
• Rides like the teacups. You sit in a large teacup and spin as fast or slowly as you choose. YOU are in control. 

Rides like these have their place. After all, it would be a bit hard on the stomach to be subjected to nearly non-stop flips and rolls of rollercoasters all day long. But without the rollercoasters, and amusement park wouldn't be all that interesting.

In life, there are many different things that happen.

• Much of life, like the carousel, is made up of fairly ordinary and tame events. Mundane. Not all that exciting.
• Then, there are the ferris wheel events. These events stretch you a bit, even as the riders of a ferris wheel are stretched to adjust to seeing the world from high in the air.
• There are the teacup-like parts of life. The events that we try to control in some way or other. These adventures are ones that we choose. We get spun around a bit, but we still remain in control.

Cedar Point's Maverick . Image found here.

And then, there are the rollercoaster events. These events can be amazingly exciting in a good way, or they can be terribly painful. 

The journey of adoption.

The journey through illness or injury.

Raising a family.

Losing a job.

Once you are strapped into the car of journeys like these, you can't get off. You have to go through it. You are committed for the entire ride, whether you like it or not.

For the believer in Jesus, we can be assured that we face the ups and downs of these "rides" with the safety restraints in place. Jesus will not send us out to free fall when the train barrel rolls around a loop in the track.

Might we be terrified as our car gets ready to take a steep plunge? Sure.
Might we want to close our eyes as the train goes into a dark tunnel? Perhaps.
Is it possible that we might wonder if, spiritually speaking, our stomachs will ever catch up with us? Probably.
Will there be times when we find it hard to even breathe? Without a doubt.

One thing is for certain, though. After riding one of life's wild rollercoasters with Jesus at our side, we can step out of the car, look at Him and say, "Wow! That was amzing!"

You see, some lessons in life, we can never learn on a carousel. We can only learn it on a rollercoaster.

Has God taught you something on a "rollercoaster" in your life that you would never have learned on a "carousel"? Why not share it in a comment below?

Over-the-Hill is Exciting

It’s my birthday today. The big 5-0. A lot of people crack jokes about being “over-the-hill” when you hit 50. Well, maybe that is not all bad. I think of it kind of like riding a roller coaster. (By the way, I LOVE roller coasters.) The anticipation as the coaster car climbs that fist long hill is a bit exciting in and of itself. Then you crest the hill and plunge down the first slope, perhaps with hands in the air … just to prove you can do it. The cool thing is, there is not just one hill on a roller coaster. You get to the bottom of one, and there is another one to climb.

As I reflect on the last decade of my life, I am amazed at what God has done … at how far He has brought me in ten years. So what has God been doing during that climb up the hill that represents this last decade? There is so much I could share, but I’ll stick with just four.

• Freedom: For starters, God set me free from a very long battle in my mind and heart that robbed me of all joy and threatened to destroy me. That is another story. Far too long for a blog post. I will say, though, that deep inside, I am not the same person I was just over 10 years ago.
• Purpose: God moved me from one place of work where I saw the opportunities for ministry being squeezed out by busy-ness. He then moved me into a new role where pretty much everything I do is in some way related to ministry. Teaching 14 English classes a week to elementary school-aged kids was ok, but I LOVE working with the kids at the children’s home where I am now. It was difficult making the move. The old job had an element of security, but the new one is really where I fit.
• Family: It never ceases to amaze me how miraculously God brought my precious daughter into my life. After many years of longing to be a wife and mother, He finally opened the door … to the mother part of the dream. I’ll share a bit about that another time. I am learning so much about how much God loves me as I find my love for Rachel growing each day.
• Expression: During this past decade, God has revived an old love for writing that I had way back in elementary school. I’ve done bits and pieces of writing over the years, but nothing consistent. This decade has seen my first book, From Captive to Conqueror finally nearing publication in mid-October. This blog has also been born out of that revival of passion for writing. I trust that God will use this passion in the decade to come to impact others for His glory.

Now, as I launch into my 50’s, I find I am not really depressed at all about being older. Even if I AM a bit “over-the-hill” according to some standards, that doesn’t mean the next decade won’t be exciting. After all, the most exhilarating part of a roller-coaster is that downhill plunge after reaching the top. I’m looking forward to the ride.