The Great Adventure....

The 1992 song "The Great Adventure" by Stephen Curtis Chapman has become "our" song.  My husband and I had just been married when this song was released.  It was an exciting time to start out on OUR Great Adventure together.  Even today this is his ring tone on my phone.  As young "kids" we could not predict the amazing adventure life would take us on.  After all, we were "good kids".  We had both been "good kids" growing up.  We met in college.  We married the summer after I finished college.  We are both pretty good at following the rules of life.  The idea of adventure sounded exciting.

Ten years later after a few ups and downs and curves of life we thought we had a pretty good idea about "real life".  Life wasn't always easy.  Choices weren't always easy.  Loving the Lord with all our heart wasn't always easy.  It was always good.  At this point we were getting a pretty good idea about what was ahead.  We already had one fabulous daughter and we had another child on the way.  I was loving life as a stay at home mom and we had moved into our "dream" home that he had designed for us.  We knew we were blessed beyond measure.

August 2002 found us facing "new adventures" that we could not have predicted.  The birth of our second daughter was traumatic.  After an emergency c-section where things got scary pretty fast we were just beginning to catch our breath when the rest of the puzzle would begin to unfold.  At about 36 hours old our new daughter (while our entire family was visiting with us at the hospital) coded.  We were immobile.  We were stunned.  Yet everyone was watching us to know what to do.  We could barely breath.  The only thing I could think of was that God must have known what was happening and that of course He was still good.  It was all I had to hold on to.  We waited.  God spoke.  Our daughter was still alive.  The next few days would set the stage that our adventure would take.  The truths I held onto during those fuzzy, intense days was that God was good no matter what was going to happen.  I also realized that THIS must be why we were blessed with a wonderful family and friend base near us.  Apparently we were going to need it.

I guess we all like road maps to help us know where our adventures are going to take us.  We want to "plan" our side trips and site seeing excursions.  After all, we are a family of "good kids" making "good" choices.  Isn't everything suppose to be "good"?  I obviously had a lot to learn about what "good" means to God.  He is good.  I'm so very glad.  In those early days I worked very hard to remind myself that God was good.  I KNEW it.  I didn't always feel it.  I'm so glad that His goodness is bigger than my faith.

James 1:17 says "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not changes like shifting shadows."

A stop I continually seem to need to make is to remember that God is good.  If the gift is from Him it is good!