ONCE AGAIN…

Repost from 2010

once againYesterday was a difficult day. I had a million things on my agenda to get done.

It was a tight schedule, but with the proper amount of management, “No Problemo.” On days like this I become the “multi-tasking musketeer,” once again…

There’s one problem with a tight and hectic schedule, you can miss some of the basics needs of a day, like food, (I don’t think this really qualifies as fasting…) but not gasoline.

I was on the on the back edge of being behind schedule. I made my stops in between business calls and sometimes during them., I didn’t really have time in my schedule to eat, but I was “Starvin like Marvin,” once again…

I went into a fast sit down “greasy spoon” right next to the gas station, I inhaled my food and headed for the door on the phone of course. I was putting out fires and setting sparks for new ones, once again…

In the truck, down the road, headed to see my mom, yesterday was her birthday. She lives in a not-as-small-as-it-used-to-be town where I grew up. The town is almost 200 miles away from where I live.

I was still on the phone when an unfamiliar alarm sounded… I’d never heard this sound before, but instinctively knew instantly what it was. It was the sound of regret… It was the sound of humiliation… It was the sound of the “low-level fuel alarm.”

With a new focus and a wildfire from nowhere, I put all my attention now on one thing, being rescued. Funny how priorities change so quickly in life, once again…

My fast paced world would come to a complete stop in about 15 miles, 45 miles from the next small town.

There I sat, all four windows down, both passenger doors open to allow some cross breeze, feeling like a dumb kid, once again…

Three hours is a long time to sit in the southwest August sun. A person can do some thinking in that time. There would be absolutely no napping with Semi’s passing me about six feet away.

You might say this is an ugly place to be. Surrounded by danger, civilization on one side that allow no mistakes at 75 miles per hour. Where the blacktop ends and the desert starts is what feels like “no man’s land,” my new home for three hours, about 15 feet from the blacktop is thick brush that graduates into trees. This is where the rattlesnakes live after dark packs of coyotes wander through it.

God has his ways of slowing us down. I find those loaded Semi’s and speeding cars on one side with the poisonous snakes and wild animals on the other, isn’t near as dangerous as trying to navigate this life without God’s guidance. Sometimes He uses those dangers in life to get our attention. He got mine, once again…

I made a new schedule, it started with a prayer. I watched a one-foot long lizard-hunting for an early dinner. I spotted some big branches for targets in the trees and threw rocks trying to revive an old pastime, it’s been a long time since I’ve done that, it felt pretty good, once again…

After my overdue rescue, I was off, but not like before. God gave me a new perspective on my day. I didn’t set the cruise control to 10 over the legal limit or pass everything in sight.

The sun on those purple mountains on the other side of the lake is beautiful just before sunset. It was good to see them once again…

I made it to town just in time to take my mom and some of the family to dinner in celebration of her birthday.

After dinner my mom and I talked, reminisced and laughed once again …

It was good to slow down and catch up with my mom, the perfect ending to a perfect day. Once again…

The roses I brought my mom she used as a lesson for me… Something about stopping to smell the roses…

Parents are almost always right. They did smell pretty good…