WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN – INSTALLMENT ONE

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN – INSTALLMENT ONE

         After all the drudgery of the training, the excitement of the bike ride and the trip and participation in Colorado, how does one get back to daily life?  Back to housework, taking care of a family, running a drapery shop and normal everyday events?  A song entered my mind as I typed this – How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree ? It was a World War I song about the troops returning home after seeing Paris and all the sights and sounds of a far-away land.  The excitement they had witnessed and participated in would make returning to a farm boring and uneventful to many of the returning soldiers.  So it could be after the excitement of the bike ride and trip to Colorado.

            I have thought often of the many things that God did for me so that I would complete the bike ride.  A Bible Study leader said in her lecture that God does not speak to us in an audible voice any more.  I believe that He did speak to me in that manner that one time.  Why?  I think that if he had not done so and spoken in the tone of voice that He did, I would not have responded to His call to sign up, train and participate in the bike ride. 

        Why choose such an unlikely person as myself to ride in the ride?  If He had chosen someone who had ridden many bike rides, owned many state-of-the-art bicycles and was fit, would His power and His miracles have been noticed?  I do not believe so.  Through my weakness as a person and my weakness of body, i.e. untrained and undisciplined,  the Lord was able to bring others alongside of me for assistance, encouragement, and training to complete the bike ride.  His supernatural power in giving me just what I needed, when I needed it showed me and others that it was not me, but the Lord working in me, that completed the training and bike ride.  For instance, how did I get up some of those hills especially ones where I began to ride again in the middle of the hill.  That is impossible for me.   How was it that in eighteen months of training, riding in the country where there were stickers, puncture vine, glass, nails and many other things that could puncture my tires and give me a flat tire, and yet I never experienced a flat tire.  A scary thought is that many times I was so far from civilization while riding that there were no cell towers around and I had absolutely no way to contact anyone if I had, had a flat tire.  Also, it was dangerous for a lone woman to be so far away from help.  I could have been accosted by someone. Cars never slowed down to go around me on a country road; they just swerved enough to avoid hitting me.  Rocks flew up and hit my helmet but never my skin, face or eyes.  Why was that?   Not only was I not injured, had a flat tire or anything bad happen, but I never thought about the possibility of it.  That, in itself was a source of peace instead of worry about what could possibly happen.  The Lord kept my mind from having those fears, otherwise, I might not have ridden out alone.  Scripture - That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10 

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND EVERYONE - SEE YOU TUESDAY, AFTR MEMORIAL DAY. I KNOW THAT IT IS NOT A HOLIDAY FOR YOU, CAROLE, BUT I'M TAKING A BREAK TO GIVE MYSELF TIME TO TYPE UP MORE THOUGHTS.