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Seven day, one hundred people later and Im not sure what has happened!!

For those not in the know, I was home for a week and managed to probably break everyones record for the number of people seen in any single day! We had over 100 people show up for our annual winter open house, and I dare say that it was a HIT!!

I guess its just one of those things where you dont really realize just how many people you know until you get them all together in one house for an afternoon, and then its insane!! and just for kicks, there were about that many more that DIDNT show up! great times . . .

The count did NOT include all the babies and very small kids that ended up at our place either . . . so there were definitely some uncounted peoples that showed up as well.

One of the things I like about things like this, is that every now and then someone shows up that you werent quite sure was going to make it, and it is only better when its someone you havent seen in ages. Its like getting a snapshot of what God is doing and has done when an old friend shows up with all the news of the major things that have been going on, things one doenst always see in the short run while trying to stay on top of everything that is being hurled your way. Its a long term perspective, and its exciting!!

Today/yesterday while flying back out here to CA, we were up around 34,000 feet in the air (yes, that IS something like 6.5 miles high) and from way up there everything on the ground was practically invisible. About the best we could see was roads, and only if they were large enough or in some places if their color was in sharp enough contrast to the eath beside them. Rivers and lakes stood out, canyons and mesas threw sharp shadows in the mid-afternoon sun, and the snow on top of the Rockies was gorgeous!

I got to thinking though, sitting way up there, watching it all flow by so very far below me, and it struck me rather suddenly. Up here in the wide/long perspective there wasnt any single thing that was really marring the beauty of what I was seeing. Everything was in its place, a truck or car here or there wasnt even visible. The power lines couldnt be seen, and there wasnt anything that I saw that ‘ruined’ what I was looking at.

And I applied that to life, to how we sit there and think that the situation facing us right now is the end of the world. Or how a mistake is going to cost us some incalculable sum, or some other such nonsense. In reality there are very very few things that leave such a stain on the canvas of our lives. What we see as some insurmountable mountain in front of us, in the long run when we step back and look at it again from a distance turns out to be a beautiful curve in the landscape that is our life. The rough times become a rocky canyon that we never want to go back to, but at the same time is irreplacable in that corner of our lives. The tears we shed flow through the low points like a river through a canyon, carving out things we never have seen before, but at the same time watering the plants that bring us joy later down the road.

I know the metaphor is NOT perfect, I dont expect it to be. There isnt any way for me to translate a landscape to a life. There is no real connection there.

What I do want you to see, is that there IS a different way to look at things. Kinda like looking at a state from miles up in the air, you can look at the things in your life with a different lens and I am pretty sure that you will find that when you look back you will find things that you thought were the worst possible outcomes, but now have become a turning point for something greater.

DONT LOSE PERSPECTIVE my friends.