Gopher Holes and All

Good morning son! How are you this morning? It's a beautiful, cold (35 degrees) morning here. Cold but the sun is trying to struggle  through. Kinda like I feel today; trying to struggle through. Just tired that's all. I should be okay with the fact that I don't feel like getting up and "hitting it" every day but somehow if I can get up and don't feel like "hitting it" I feel lazy. Is lazy good? I don't know. Who cares anyway? The important thing is that I feel right? This is starting off really crazy isn't it? Can you tell I didn't sleep well last night?  There's just nights like that I guess. My brain just isn't clicking in this morning.

We survived the storm just fine. It helps when you're surrounded by solid rock and sit on a hill! Kinda like life huh. When you build your life well and surround yourself with the important things in life, or what I consider important for me, life is good. There are always bumps in the road, 'cause of the gophers I think, but how would we recognize the smooth road if there were no gopher holes?

Okay, let's try this again. I've had lunch and some coke. Well, actually Pepsi. Don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Let's get back to the gopher holes in the journey. They are everywhere you know. Sometimes we recognize them, sometimes not. They're all there for a purpose. Sometimes to make us veer so we don't break a strut. Sometimes because if we hit the hole we'd loose a tire, or break and axle or worse yet, run over a squirrel.

Sometimes we're so focused on the gopher holes though we miss the rest of the road. There is more road than gopher holes you know. I can't imagine you'd have gopher holes in the streets of gold in heaven. In fact, do you have gophers? I mean if you have one animal, don't you have two of everything? How would that work anyway? So, back to the road. The road we're given in life is always changing. Always new twists and turns. I'm finding that there is very little "straight stretch".  The one thing about the twists and turns is that you really never know what's coming next. Guess that's where faith comes in. I'm finding that in order to navigate the road I'm having to count on my faith more. For me, that means I'm having to trust the Lord more to get me over the gopher holes, around the curves and turns, over the hills and out to the straight-a-way. Faith doesn't come easy. It means I have to believe in someone bigger than me. (Knock it off! You know what I meant.) Anyway, for me, faith was a lot easier when dad and I were both working and you were younger. Maybe it just seemed that way because we could solve a lot of our own problems. Which, is not using faith at all is it? Hmm.

Without going into any detail just let me say that I've experienced some difficult changes this last week. They're something that I knew would happen eventually. Something that should happen and are right to happen. But when they did and do, I hate to say it, they really hurt. I guess you could say  I was headed up a hill and knew what was coming on the other side but the gopher hole caught me off guard. (TomTom doesn't show you everything in your path. Close, but not everything.) By the way, dad and I thank you and Kristin every single time we get in the car for the gift of your GPS before we left Springfield. It has been an amazing tool in making us independent on the road.)

Well, it's 7 p.m. Let's see if I can finish this one thought today. It's been a busy 24 hours. We had a great time with Josie. However, trying to have a concise thought with that bundle of energy around is another story altogether.

Life will always have it's ups and downs and go-arounds. There will always be gopher holes and turns in twists. There will always be my faith. All in all, as long as I use my faith as my GPS and practice what I preach I should be able to maneuver whatever comes along my way on this road called life.

Until next week, be Aaron, love mom