A risk worth taking...

As tropical storm Jova made its way through Guatemala these past few days, the destruction is evident everywhere. Lives were taken and others were forced to pick up the pieces and move on.

A couple of nights ago as I laid in my bed listening to the rain pour down outside my windown. My mind slowly slipped into panic mode and the fear began to rise inside of me. "Lord, please don’t let our home go crumbling down the side of the mountain… Lord please protect our family."

And I was taken back to a time not even a year ago when we huddled together in a closet in our Texas home. A time when tornadoes were brewing everywhere, a time when you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing about another life taken in an instant by the horrible storms. I remember sitting in that stuffy, small, closet with my babies around me praying "Lord, please don’t let our home get hit by a tornado… Lord please protect our family."

And then to a time years ago when I flying in a small airplane headed for Illinois to visit family. The airplane hit a huge patch of turbulence and that little plane bounced up and down around like a rubber ball does on a slab on concrete. I remember sitting in my seat on that little plane praying “Lord please don’t let this plane go down. Lord, please keep me safe."

As I look back on those memories one thing comes to mind.

None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

Yet, most of the time we fool ourselves into believing that somehow we are.

We often act as if we make all the right moves, make all the right choices, and stay within the little safety net we have ever so carefully built around us- we can live forever.

Those lives that were taken here in Guatemala the past few days, I am guessing none of them could have believed that day would be their last.

Those lives that were taken in the tornados several months ago in Texas, I am sure none of them would have guessed that day would be the day.

The lives that have been lost in airplane crashed after airplane crash, I doubt if they ever saw it coming as they loaded the plane that day.

But the plain, simple, honest truth is- we are going to die.

There I said it.

I am going to die.

No really, I am.

And so are you.

We have no choice and we have no say in the matter.

One day, we are going to die. And there is no way around it.

The only choice and the only say we get is- what are we going to do with today?

What are we going to do with the precious, fragile, beautiful thing called time we are given?

Are we going to live our lives to the fullest, taking big risks, loving deeply, giving freely, focusing on the good and forgiving the bad?

Or are we simply going to exist, clinging to the very things that we cannot keep anyway, and continuing to fool ourselves into believing we somehow can?

People have asked us time and time how ‘risky’ is it to live in Guatemala. And the truth is my friends- we took a risk.

A BIG risk…

We took the risk because plain and simple,these precious souls were worth it.

And one day, when the Lord calls me home, in a way I don't get to choose, in a time that will never be quite right, I will kneel before Him and know without a doubt...

I made the right choice.