Turbulence Ahead

I spoke before about how I have been busy and getting to bed early and gaining back some of the sleep lost through the late nights of my college life. Well it came back to haunt me. This weekend I spent 30+ hours in a car, got little sleep, had an awesome Father’s day, floated 1,200 ft in the sky and was reminded how proud of a sister I am. Ok hold on. I’ll back up.

Wednesday the 16th at about 6:00pm (most of) the Glenn gang piled in the car to started the 15 or so hour drive to Lakeland, FL where my Dad’s father lives. Cody (my youngest brother) is a pretty stellar baseball player (not that I’m at all biased) and he had an event at Tropicana Field in Tampa, FL. It was perfect timing – Father’s Day weekend with my grandfather + Cody pitching on the big field + any chance to go to Florida = YES!

My learning moment from this stop on my “road trip” happened on Friday. I had set in my head for a while now that I was going parasailing this summer, so when we had some free time I set out with my parents for a boat, a sail and some open water. It didn’t take long until we found Treasure Island in St. Pete; we hopped on a boat and made our way up, up, up. (My Dad and I went up together) I wish I could have safely taken a camera up with me – the view was awesome. There was a storm brewing behind us, sunshine in front of us, the awesome coast line to our right, turtles swimming to our left and birds flying below us! Once you get up high enough, everything is silent – no roar of the boat or city sounds. It was completely peaceful. And everything below was so small!

I didn’t think about it at the time, but reflecting back on the time up in the air, it is amazing how we selfishly convince ourselves how important we are. My current discussion making process consist of trying to figure out where I’m going to be living in about a month when it comes time to move to Dallas, and (seemingly) more important, how I am going to get the money to pay for all this! Monday rolled around, and I’m back in Houston calling and traveling around to banks being denied again and again and again for loans. I don’t qualify as a “Student” and therefore no student loan for me! I don’t “break down” just all the time, but Monday was a break down kind of day for me. I hate those days! The days when you know it’s unreasonable and not helpful in any way to cry, but logic is not efficient at drying tears in days like this. My problems seemed too important and still unfixable.

Now, when it is easier to think with my head versus my emotions, I think back to the city as we looked down from the sky. We could see cars going by, and in each car was someone with their own problems ranging from lame problems (like mine!) to much more sizeable concerns. My problems will not cause the earth to stop rotating – life will continue to go on. And more amazingly, we serve a God who is deeply engaged into each of these problems, great or small.

I think it is important to keep each of these realizations in balance. One, that we are just a small piece of a huge picture, but also that this small piece we make up is hugely important.

Thank God for family, road trips and timely lessons.