Beautiful Adventure

2019 was a beautiful adventure. It was full of grand adventures and small beautiful moments.  This past year was also as difficult as it was beautiful but through it all I know God was fathering me; teaching me how to be the man he created me to be when he formed me.

2019 brought an awesome change to my life with April as we bought a house.  Then we traveled through Europe and we were able to spend all month together without having to go to work.  But it was a difficult year too.  A couple of my students decided to harass me online and even though my sleep has improved, I am still not sleeping perfectly.

Through all of the good and the bad God has taught me to look to him and as him, what do you have for me in this?  His answer has been always been to prompt me to open my eyes to the beauty around me.

Just tonight as I was leaving basketball practice the sun was setting and the colors shown across the sky.  It reminded me that I am loved.  Beauty can be anywhere and I could spend this entire blog listing the times I saw an awesome sunset or went on a glorious hike, but that is not why I am writing.  I want to challenge my readers and myself to look for beauty when it is not expected.  With our eyes open, God will surprise us.  He wants you to know he loves you.

April and I had been traveling through the United Kingdom this summer.  We had saved for a little over two years to be able to go to Europe.  Each city we visited along the way was a treat all on its own.  But the best, and most fun was when we landed in Amsterdam.  It was 100 degrees out and we had no desire to take the train into the city from the airport and then lug all of our bags to our hotel.  We’d been sticking to our transportation budget since we blew about 100 dollars on a taxi to the wrong Hilton in London (you would think that since we speak the same language it would be easier to travel from the airport to your hotel after a full day of not sleeping), so we had a little bit of money set aside for the small extravagance for a taxi.

Amsterdam airport is set up so that only a select group of taxis can transport passengers into the city.  So we walked to the stand and figured we would take what we would get and we would pay for it too.  I hailed the taxi, the driver took our luggage, and we hopped inside.  It was the nicest car I had ever been in.  A Tesla SUV.  What a treat.  When we rolled up to our hotel people started taking pictures of us and the car.

We then had a bellhop take out stuff into the hotel, which capped off the entire experience.  April and I felt like royalty.  Think of it, I am a teacher and she works for the library.  We are normal people.  God just wanted to give us a beautiful gift.  As we got to our room, which had air conditioning (A must in a 100 degree heat wave), I couldn’t stop laughing at how God is lavish with his love.  Riding in a Tesla was a small thing, it’s just a car, but it made my day.

God is constantly doing things to make our days.  He is opening up beautiful surprises for us we just have to open our eyes to what he has.  And then on our way out of Amsterdam, we figured we didn’t need to be extravagant again so we just had our hotel call us a taxi.  We didn’t need a Tesla, so God sent us a Jaguar.

God has done things like this over and over again throughout my year.  God cares about my heart and helping me feel alive.  He sent two beautiful cars to drive me around in a beautiful city just to remind me that he loves me.

My hope for 2020 is that I can continue to keep my eyes open to the beauty God has for me.