Flashback

Do you remember what it was like to try and do something new. For example, snow skiing, water skiing, roller blading, or even learning how to drive.

I thought that since Tom and I are both in a season of change, that I would include in this week's flashback the time that I went on a ski trip with the youth group of the church that I grew up in.

Most of you already know, but Tom and I both grew up in the same church in Hutchinson. Tom is 4 years older than me, so we didn't have the same group of friends until I was in college. We both attended Bethany Church of the Nazarene there in Hutch. At the time, Tom was already in college, and I really didn't know him very well. Anyway, our youth group was a pretty tight knit group. My two best friends were in that group, and we still keep in touch to this day, even though Steph lives in Kansas City and Carol lives in Montana, we still try to find times to talk or get together when we can.

So I went on a ski trip with my youth group. One of the funniest moments that I had was when my friend Steph and I were getting onto the ski lift. We stood there waiting for the chair to come around and take us up to the top of the mountain. The chair comes around, and boom!! Steph, is not sitting on the chair she is just hanging by her ski. I tried to pull her up, but my efforts were useless. She said "Just let me go" I met her at the top and just could not stop laughing. Another event on that trip was when I decided to follow my brother Caleb, who is a year younger than me but years more daring than I will ever be. I asked him if there were any more challenging slopes since I had done the bunny slopes and blue slopes. He said "Yeah, there are some greens." Which I understood were a little harder than blue slopes, so I followed him up there. However, when I got up there, all I saw were black slopes, which are the steepest slopes. I was not about to break my leg or anything, so I took off my skis and walked down the slope. He skis past me and is laughing and joking at me all the way down. Brothers!!! Two more events. My friend Steph's dad decided to be a chaperone for this trip. He obviously was not a skiier. He would get off the lift and then got straight down the slope. The way we knew he was coming was b/c he would yell, "Look out, I can't stop!!!" Another part of this trip, my friend Carol was skiing ahead of me and Steph and we came around a corner and she was hanging from a short cliff. We helped her out, and then she sped right by and said "See ya later." Then Steph, couldn't get her skis back on and Carol was no where to be found.

What fun it was to just be care free and ski without thinking too much about anything else. I often wish that I could take a piece of myself from back then and live that way for a while. I sometimes think that things just are so very serious all the time, and I need a break from it all. My goal this week is to just be. Let God drive my life car, and just keep going. Who knows, maybe God will take me to places where I can have that carefree attitude again.

Later,
Mira