Flying Lessons

There you are, comfortable as can be, minding your own business, reading a book, and daydreaming about a peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich. Suddenly God shows up and tells you he wants to give you something.

You know from personal experience that God's gifts are kind of tricky to handle and his plans for you seldom work out the way you expect. And yet, he is God, and that means he's a good guy. So what do you do? Stay put? Go with him? Run screaming for the hills?

It doesn't matter. He is God. He knows what you need, he knows where you live, and he knows how to give gifts like no one you ever met.

Here's the deal: Life is wonderful, except for the arts that aren’t. Parts like pain, loss, suffering, grief, indigestion, burnt cookies, and all those other parts that hurt our hearts and bodies.

What’s up with those? Why doesn’t God take them away? Why can’t life be fun and happy all the time?

You could read a dozen scholarly volumes and still not understand, or you could read this little fable and find a major clue.

I'm from Renton, Washington, originally and except for two years in Rexburg Idaho and four months in Kingston, New York, lived there from 1960 (the year I was born) until 2008, when Mary and I moved to Spokane. Here are a few additional and ridiculously compelling details about me, in case you're interested: I have five sons, one daughter, 8-10 grand kids (it changes periodically) and a miniature poodle named Copper; I am a born-again believer in Jesus Christ; I love cookies; I have read more than two thousands books - novels, texts, tomes, manuscripts, what have you - in the last three decades; I love cooking, I love eating and most of all I love eating other people's cooking; I spent more than two decades driving truck but now work as a Certified Nurse's Aid - it's often messier than driving, but more satisfying at the end of the day.