The following story was from a post on FB. It was an unaccredited article. I thought at the beginning of this year it would be another great tool to add to our toolbox. Learning to ask ourselves this question. Does it really matter!

A young lady sat in a bus. At the next stop a loud and grumpy old lady came and sat by her.

She squeezed into the seat and bumped her with her numerous bags.

The person sitting on the other side of the young lady got upset, asked her why she did not speak up and say something.

The young lady responded with a smile:

“It is not necessary to be rude or argue over something so insignificant, the journey together is so short. I get off at the next stop.”

This response deserves to be written in golden letters:

“It is not necessary to argue over something so insignificant, our journey together is so short”

If each one of us realized that our time here is so short; that to darken it with quarrels, futile arguments, not forgiving others, discontentment and a fault finding attitude would be a waste of time and energy.

Did someone break your heart? Be calm, the journey is so short.

Did someone provoke or intimidate you? Be calm, forgive; the journey is so short.

Did someone betray, bully, cheat or humiliate you? Be calm, forgive; the journey is so short.

Whatever troubles anyone brings us, let us remember that our journey together is so short.

No one knows the duration of this journey. No one knows when their stop will come.

Our journey together is so short.

Let us cherish friends and family. Let us be respectful, kind and forgiving to each other. Let us be filled with gratitude and gladness.

If I have ever hurt you, I ask for your forgiveness. If you have ever hurt me, you already have my forgiveness.

After all, Our Journey Together is so Short! God bless you!

Have a safe journey!

From The Top of The Falls

Chapter 2  Part 1

After traveling a couple of hours up the mountain, we stopped to do the tourist thing. Looking down toward the capital city of Tegucigalpa, was a most gorgeous view. We saw several waterfalls along the way. I can’t travel in the mountains without the uncontrollable urge to sing ‘How great Thou Art!’

I think sometimes we are so afraid of getting off on some kooky worship of nature, that we forget to stop and smell the roses. Have you ever taken a walk with a three-year-old? They stop and look at every bug, worm, and weed. Kids know what wonderful is, it means to be full of wonder. I think God put beauty in nature to cause man to stop and take a time out. It is both refreshing and renewing to view the awesomeness of God’s handy work.

We had a flat tire on the way up the mountain. Now this tire was as smooth as the back of my hand. Nevertheless, God meets us at the point of our need. He was again faithful. We pulled into the station just as the guy was closing, but he graciously stayed and fixed our tire. This, however, put us another hour late. Didn’t seemed to bother anyone, but us time obsessed North Americans.

We were stopped by a road patrol. Don’t know a lot about it except; they were going to make us go back down the mountain and start over. We all began to pray, and they let us go, after another 30-minute delay.

The significance of the river we went to for the baptism has escaped me. There must have been something special. We walked over a old swinging bridge, through what I would call a cow pasture. We passed a couple of very rustic homes (shacks), then stopped on the bank of this very small river.

From there we watched as a dozen people were baptized. Going down in obedience and coming up with their faces glowing with the love of Jesus. I think my favorite part is that they all entered the water together and stood in a semi-circle.  Then one by one, each stepped forward and was baptized in the name ‘Of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ My heart took a picture!

After walking back through the pasture, over the swinging bridge, we boarded our bus, and headed for a park. There we would eat our lunch and play in the water.

The teens, of course headed right for the water. The water slide dropped you at the bottom of a waterfall. I, and two other team members began to prepare lunch. We had brought bread, peanut butter, and apples. As we began to cut up the apples, and make the sandwiches, little kids with big gorgeous, Honduran eyes began coming out of the corners. You could tell they were not only curious, but also hungry.

 We began at the prompting of Soyla our most trusted leader to share. One of our team members kept saying “Save some for our kids”. We had 7 teens with us, plus some of missionary Tim’s boys. She wasn’t being selfish; she was just being faithful to her part, which was to keep watch for the well-being of the kids on our team. I remember the tears in our eyes, and the knot in my stomach as we handed out the last apple. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last pair of little eyes.

What I remember the most were three boys about 8 or 9. They watched for a long time before they came close. I imagine they had been verbally chased from more than one picnic dinner. Not scary looking just the look of survivors in their eyes. I recognized the look from our 15 years as foster parents.

Like little kittens meowing, because they are hurt, yet scratching and biting anyone that reaches out to them. Showing pain makes you feel very vulnerable, anger is more empowering.  Anger puts up walls, and you might feel safe, unfortunately, it also shuts out people that would genuinely want to love you.

          After passing out that last apple, last peanut butter sandwich I decided to go sit, and put my feet in the water.  I felt the weight of this world’s injustice.  I have felt this feeling before, and I didn’t really care much for it. When a social worker would pull out of your drive, taking a baby that had come for two weeks, and stayed for 7 months.

 Maybe they were going back to what they came out of, nothing had improved, maybe the system had dropped the ball. Or perhaps they had been adopted and was going on to a life of love and caring. Nevertheless, they were leaving, and a part of our hearts were leaving too.

 At that point, you are tempted to quit loving, and if you are depending on your own strength, you will. We lost a lot of foster parents after the first good-by. Letting go is one of the hard parts of loving.

 At the top of this cement slide was an area with about 15 x 30 ft, where you could cool your feet in the water, or play with your little ones.

Two of the guys on our team were sitting and talking when I sat down. They asked, “Are you going down the slide.” I immediately said” No! The statement I made was “Don’t get me wrong I love the water, but I continued “every time I try to do something like that, I get hurt, or make a fool out of myself”.  Now the Bible says, ‘The power of life and death is in the tongue.’ Henry Ford’s quote “If you think you can or if you think you can’t, either way you’re right” All I knew for sure is that God is faithful.

Finally, after prodding and reassurance, I stepped to the top of the slide. It was very rustic, worn poured cement. I put my right leg forward, and when I sat my left foot down, I placed it on a slippery patch of algae. My body lunged forward, my right leg and the top half of my left leg followed, unfortunately from the knee down went a different direction. I am not sure if there was any danger of going down the slide, I only remember a lot of people pulling on me. One young Honduran lady just kept it immersed and continued to straighten it and bend it. Don’t know if it helped, but it felt better.

I am not sure who helped me on the bus. I think we left soon after. I sat in a seat with my foot elevated on an overturned plastic five-gallon bucket. That felt better to keep it up. I just knew it hurt, and I was trying to smile. I was glad when it became dark, I could cry without anyone seeing me.

 We had given our food away, so we stopped at an all you can eat buffet. I think it was a chicken buffet. My leg hurt so bad. People were being so nice to me; they kept asking how I was doing. I wanted so badly to say, “shut up, and eat so we can leave”.

I finally made it back to my seat, but the bucket was gone. I would attempt to put my not so long leg across the aisle, on to the edge of the seat. The crabby old bag in me really wanted to emerge, but everyone was tired, it had been a long day for all of us. 

I am not sure when it started to rain. I don’t think it was raining when we left the restaurant. I just remember it was raining hard and the wipers weren’t good. The defrost wasn’t working very well either. There was a wonderful Honduran gentleman continuously clearing the fog off the windshield. Remember we were driving down the mountain, and it was dark. I just kept thinking none of this is a surprise to God, he didn’t plan it, nor was he surprised by it.

The young people with their seemingly endless energy were still singing and laughing. It reminded me of the trips home from church youth rallies as a teenager. I think one or two were dosing, but for the most part they were still going strong. We had teenagers on our team, plus 6 or 7 of Missionary Tim’s boys. These were young men that had been discarded by life. He brought them to his home, led them to the saving knowledge of Jesus, taught them life skills. Then by example, taught them to pour into the lives of other people.

 One of our team girls testified that it was hard for her to smile if she didn’t feel like it. During one of the balloon ministries with the kids, the Lord spoke to her heart, and told her if she gave a balloon without a smile, it was just a piece of rubber with air. It touched her so much that by the end of the trip, someone was trying to describe her, and they referred to her as the girl with the smile. Ministry changes the heart of man.

Most of the adults had passed the state of exhaustion. They were trying their best to sleep, despite the noise; rain and continuous head bobbing you do on a very old bus. 

My leg was beginning to swell. The only thing in worse shape than my leg, was my attitude. I pulled myself to standing position and would hold on to the bar overhead. These bars were there for the standing people to hang onto while they rode. From what I saw there were no capacity limits on the buses in Honduras, if you could get on you could ride. So, there were those who sat, and those who hung on to the bars. We were blessed there were enough seats. In Tegucigalpa for a church to keep their bus licensed, they had to do several hours a day community driving. The school buses were the city buses. After our driver got done running us all over, he had to drive the bus for the city. He was also a pastor.

Even though it was a challenge to keep my balance standing on one leg, the position change helped. At one point I had to say to God my leg hurts, my attitude stinks, please Lord help me. I think most of us, self-included, thought it was a slight sprain. God’s word says, ‘In everything give thanks. Not for everything. In whatever situation we find ourselves.’ So, I began to thank him for the day, the baptisms, the kids we touched. Oh, how very important it is that we learn to worship.

There were battles the children of Israel fought when God instructed them to send the worshipers out ahead of them. Then they won the victory. However, when they grumbled and complained…the outcome was never good. Might be something to that. Victory seems to be more about being grateful during the journey, and less about completing it. Instead of attempting to keep a good attitude…being grateful accomplishes that and much more.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Blessings! Thanks for Reading!