An Open Letter to My Grandchildren–Be Superheroes!

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Lynn

My Sweet Grandbabies,

You are too young to know what’s happening in the world today.  You dress up in your old Halloween costumes and play “Superhero” in aBy our love make-believe fantasy that always has a happy ending!  I never want to take that away from you…but your grandmother has grown cynical over the years and Superheroes are hard to find these days.

I’m sure every grandparent has wondered the same as me today: “What kind of world will my grandkids grow up in?”  My great-grandmother lived through World War 1 and my grandmother and my mother survived World War 2 and the Korean War, and I was a young child during the Vietnam War.  And now?  Well now we’re in the middle of a war against terrorism.  It’s global war and to be absolutely truthful, I can’t tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys”.

“What is war?” you ask.

I wish I had a really good answer, but the best way to explain it is that war is the result when grown-ups do not know how to “love one another”.  That’s the gist of it.

Jesus said that others will know us (Christians) by our love for one another.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:35  I know you are smart kids so you’ve picked up on the fact that Jesus is talking about Christians loving one another.  You know, like brothers and sisters love each other.  Like families should love one another.  It should be easy to do, right? 

Wrong.

Remember the day you yelled, “I hate you!” at your Mommy when she gave you a time-out for being disrespectful to her?  Or the time I yelled at you for breaking one of my favorite music boxes after I had told you not to touch it.  I was mad at you and you were mad at me.  For a while there you thought of me as a “bad guy”.

Adults call “bad guys” enemies.

To be sure there are enemies who are very, very bad people and need to be stopped so that they cannot hurt you or others.  But you may also call some people “enemies” because you don’t agree with them, or they may not want to do the same things you want to do.  Maybe they think or act differently than you, or maybe they try to prevent you from doing something you want to do regardless of whether or not it’s good for you.   Anyone, even your own family can be your enemy at any given time, but it’s up to you to decide whether or not they STAY your enemy.  That’s where love comes in.

You see, Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  (Matthew 5:44)  That’s a tough thing to do.  Believe me.  It’s hard to love someone who has hurt you.  It’s hard for you to forgive that kid who broke your toy, or the little girl who pushed you at the playground.  It is natural for you to be mad at those kids.  I get it!  It makes perfect sense to want to push that little girl down on her keester the next time you’re at the playground.  After all she deserves it!  She was a “bad guy” and she was mean to you, so it’s perfectly okay for you to be mean right back…after all Superheroes must fight bad guys, right?

Jesus tells you to do the opposite of what is natural to you…love instead of hate!  Why?  Because if you love someone it will be easier to forgive them when they hurt or disappoint you.  It is easier to show compassion and care, and have empathy for those who don’t think or act the way you do.  It allows you to avoid the fights in the first place and turn away wrath!  (Proverbs 15:1)  Love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8) the Bible says.  So Jesus asks you to be a Superhero!  A Superhero with an ultimate power that will right all wrongs…LOVE!

Just imagine if LOVE were your Super-Power according to 1 Corinthians 13.  You would be patient, and kind.  You would never envy, or boast or be prideful.  You would never dishonour others.  You would be humble and not self-seeking.  You would not be angry and would keep no record of wrongs.  You would not delight in evil but rejoice in TRUTH!  You would protect, trust, hope and always persevere!  You would never fail in doing good!

Imagine if EVERYONE in the world had that Super-Power!  Wouldn’t that be awesome?   We could stop hate right in its tracks!  There would be no more wars!

Unfortunately, you may have noticed that most adults haven’t figured that out.  There are no real-life Superheroes in our big world.  We get mad and stay mad at each other.  We refuse to forgive someone who has been mean to us.  We stop being friends.  We hate.  We go to war.

We have no idea how to forgive and forget.  We don’t know how to love our own brothers and sisters in Christ properly, let alone anyone else who doesn’t share our beliefs.  We complain, we bicker, we fight amongst ourselves.  If we cannot love each other, how in the world can we love our enemies??

So, my grandbabies…it’s up to you.

The world needs Superheroes right now.  It requires super-human effort to right the wrongs of this world.  It may mean standing up for truth and justice until the enemy is defeated, and yes, that may require going to battle.  That’s the consequence of living in a selfish, sinful world.  So we’ll fight the good fight until you’re old enough to take up the banner.  But then it’s up to you to not repeat the mistakes of the past.  To do what we have not been able to do in this lifetime: to totally embrace Jesus’ philosophy of peace and HOPE.  It’s up to you to be the new Superheroes…REAL heroes who will make a REAL difference in this world…and heroes who are known by their LOVE!

I know you can do it!

Love, Grandma

 

 

 

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GPS – The Blind Leading the Blind

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Lynn

Has it really been only two weeks since we were boating down the Colorado River in Arizona?  ComingIMG_1677 home after our “Great Adventure” has left us in a bit of a blue funk.  Laundry is done, the 5th wheel is winterized, we’re getting back to routine at home and we’ve reconnected with family and friends who missed us while we were away.  It’s great to be home, to be sure, but it’s hard not to long for the open road again.

Our last few days driving home from Nevada had not been without its challenges.  For one thing, it seemed like we were the only Snowbirds travelling north!  All the RV traffic we passed (mostly fellow Canadians from B.C. and Alberta) must have thought we were going in the wrong direction…and they would have been right!  Especially when we hit snow in Ely, Nevada I wished we could just make a U-turn and head back the way we had come.  We waved to the southern-bound Snowbirds and continued our trek northward but not without some regrets we were not going in the opposite direction.

Stopping at the Craters to the Moon National Park for lunch enroute to spending the night in Dillon, Montana we mistakenly depended on our GPS to guide our way through unfamiliar territory.  We had discovered throughout our “Great Adventure” that the GPS was a good tool to use at times to help us navigate in the cities but we also discovered that it was not without its quirks.  For one thing, the GPS “lady” insisted on leading us down some routes that contradicted the road signs ahead.  Then when we followed the signs that clearly took us in the right direction, GPS Judy (as I started to name her), would demand that we make a “legal U-turn” until we were ready to strangle her.  There were times that road construction seemed to throw off our GPS and “Judy” would advise us that “guidance could not be given at this time” as we detoured on.  Our GPS didn’t understand the fact that a rig our size needed more than 50 feet to change lanes and turn in the direction she insisted we take.  We’d miss the turn and she would once again hissy-fit at us to “make a legal U-turn” until she could recalculate an obscure route that would circle us back again.  By that time, ignoring her incessant squawking to legally U-turn, we’d usually found our way back on track by following the posted road signs and then she wouldn’t talk to us again, put off that we found a better route than she had intended for us to go.  Many times I thought of our GPS as the blind leading the blind.  (Matthew 15:14)

As the weather was growing more snowy and road conditions started to deteriorate the further north we travelled, we were content to have GPS Judy calmly guide us while we concentrated on the winter driving. Perhaps she decided this was going to be her way to enact revenge on us for all the times we had ignored her advice before, but we were too busy concentrating on icy road conditions to question her choice to go left to Dillon rather than right.  We blindly followed her direction and a few miles later we found ourselves on a snowy, icy, muddy, gravel road going up a mountain pass with no way to turn around.  GPS Judy was silent while I wept.  I feared we would get our 52 foot-long rig stuck or jack-knifed and I cried and prayed and prayed and cried as my husband kept his composure despite a caterwauling wife beside him.  For twenty miles he brilliantly maneuvered our truck and fifth wheel, having more faith in God and his driving ability than I did at the time, and safely got us over the worst road we had ever been on!

“Another lesson learned!” he declared as he washed off two inches of mud, snow and ice caked on the front, sides and back of our trailer at an RV power wash in Dillon a few hours later.  “Never solely trust the GPS,” he said.

Yeah, no kidding.

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Snowbirds

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Lynn

A Snowbird is a term often associated with people who move from colder climates of the northern USAWN1421201_l and Canada and migrate southward in winter to warmer locales such as Florida, California, Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt of the southern United States and into Mexico.  Canadians took on the name, “Snowbird” as their own when Anne Murray (Canada’s sweetheart), in 1969 sang her way into all our hearts with the line: “Spread your tiny wings and fly away, and take the snow back with you where it came from on that day…”

I’m being really honest here but I am NOT a fan of snow.  I never took to the snow sports, so I don’t take advantage of the winter weather to do “fun” things.  For me, it’s an endurance to suffer through the snowy seasons until the warm weather returns…and that can sometimes be a very long wait.  In Alberta I have seen snow in all twelve months!  Thank goodness we also have those wonderful Chinook winds that can blow in so temperatures rise from well below 0 C to into double-digit temperatures within hours.  Barometric pressure messes with my head, so it’s migraine time when that happens!

We are very used to snow, we Canadians.  We have to be!  When snow is on the ground on an average of eight months a year, we learn to live with the white stuff.  We are very spoiled where we live with the views of the Rockies, and the snow on their peaks make them even more beautiful!  That’s about the only benefit I see with having snow in our vicinity.  I love looking at the mountains!

Enroute back home from Las Vegas, we spent the night in Ely, Nevada and woke up to snow this morning!  In fact, we are the cold spot in the U.S. this morning!  I knew I was going home to snow in Alberta, but I sure did not expect snow in Nevada!  I reluctantly retired my tank top, shorts and sandals and put on my jeans and sweater.  I am in a woe-is-me mode this morning lamenting the fact we are leaving summer behind the farther north we travel.

Our “Great Adventure” continues as we travel north.  God uses the weather to teach me along the way.  As much as I love the summer weather we have experienced the last four weeks, the reality is that there will be days of bad weather…and snow!

We travel with God through all seasons of life.  We love the fair weather, but certainly there are far more lessons learned through cold, snowy months.  Those are the times we hunker down and just try to stay warm and connected with God.  So today, I’m looking out the RV window and I’m seeing a ray of sunlight peak over the snow-covered peaks here in Ely and I can’t help but smile.  This Snowbird is almost home.

“He Who forms the mountains, Who creates the wind, and Who reveals His thoughts to mankind,
Who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord God Almighty is His name..” Amos 4:13

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