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Reflections

Jottings from My Journals

Journal entries are memorial markers… sort of like the stones Joshua piled up from the River Jordan. Reading past entries helps put today’s problems in focus. Here’s another quote from March 1988.

Random Ramblings

Here are some random notes from my first trip to Hawaii in 1987. By sharing these jottings from that trip 20 years ago, I share my heart with you to hopefully stimulate your thinking on some very personal values.

Leaving home

Why is it always a trauma? Boards and brick that form an empty space do not make my home, but that space holds all that is important to me. It is the womb of family life.

For me, leaving home is sort of a birth trauma, like leaving the security and warmth of the womb and going into a world that is strange and new. But to know life, birth must happen. There must be separation from the womb, however traumatic that is.

Lord, help me today as we launch this phase of life’s adventure. May this day have the freshness of new life, the energy, the hope, and trust that a newborn has. Let the thrill of new life supersede the trauma of leaving home.

Familiar faces

Is there any exhilaration like seeing a familiar face away from home? After traveling four hours by plane, stopping in two airports, suddenly we become alive when we see friends.

NOW we are somebody… it showed in their faces as they recognized us. NOW we are more than just another passenger to be assigned a seat, or a nonentity washing hands at the next sink, or part of the endless stream of humanity flowing through the airport corridors.

Suddenly we are real, live people because we have friends!

Movie rerun or Hawaiian sunset

Reluctantly but obediently I pulled down the window shade on the Hawaii-bound plane so ear-phoned travelers could watch the in-flight movie. Changing cloud patterns outside intrigued me; inside the colorized black and white movie ground away.

Finally I could resist no longer. Pink clouds tempted me to pull up the shade to view the spectacular sunset from 35,000 feet in the air. The ocean darkened and the sky deepened into orange and blue as volcanic mountains were silhouetted in the western sky. Rolling credits indicated the movie was over, but the afterglow of the sunset lingered.

Lord, help me to always appreciate the reality of a sunset more than the artificiality of the movie world. Help me to be more aware of the works of God than the works of man. And help me to be patient with people who are caught up in the trappings of this world until I can help them understand You.

Moments of Reality

5:00 a.m. I am wide awake feeling the ocean breeze blowing through the open door to the lanai. Knowing we only have one more day, I cross the room to savor the city’s early morning.

Sparkling lights, crisp breeze, soft pre-dawn light, faint outlines of mountains and ocean spread a panoramic scene before me. “Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore,” would be an appropriate response.

In moments like this, I feel conflicting emotions. I’m filled with excitement and wonder that I have the privilege of travel. I hope I never lose this sense of discovery and appreciation of different things (made possible only by leaving home).

The other side of the emotion reminds me of those who never have the privileges I have had. Knowing that with privilege comes responsibility, I pledge myself:

• to never take privilege for granted by assuming I will always have it,
• to never indulge myself, thinking I have certain things coming to me or that I deserve more than others,
• to always be prepared to give from the abundance given to me, and
• to be grateful for every privilege that comes my way.
  

Points to Ponder:

We exchange the comfort of home for the stimulation of travel. In what other areas do we give up one thing to experience something new? Can we limit ourselves by clinging too dearly to the comfortable?

A friendly greeting away from home brings much affirmation. In what ways can we affirm friends we see regularly?

You may not be in Hawaii when you read this, but consider some privileges you do have. Stop a moment and give thanks for every blessing, and then assume the responsibility that comes with those privileges.

PEGGY MUSGROVE is a licensed Assemblies of God minister. She is also a speaker, freelance writer, author and prayer group leader. Her latest book, Musings of a Maraschino Cherry was released in 2004.. You can visit her at www.musgroveville.com.

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