Train Time # 17

Today, it’s the 5:04 bound for Homewood.

Today’s revelations:

Our church, and separate from that me personally, believe in “personal revelations”. Specifically, I believe that god speaks to all of us as individuals. Although I believe that there may be exceptions, I believe that these private messages from God are typically about personal private things.

In other words: I don’t believe that God would use me to communicate something like the solution to world hunger, or a way to assure no more wars for example. However, as a father and a son and a husband and a friend, he will give me guidance, inspiration and direction on all things related to all of those titles I hold.

With this in mind, I wanted to share some of the things I believe I was given today to help me along my way.

 

I owe, I owe so off to work I go…

Over the past two years or so I have spent way too much time worrying about a sum of money that I owe. Specifically, I fear that, even though I am making payments and so far every one is happy, that I shall never be able to pay it off (If you read my blog you can guess the specifics of what I am speaking of).

Yesterday my wife and I were talking about this topic and she very kindly said one simple phrase:

“I don’t know how you can spend so much energy worrying about that loan…”

That simple phrase lightened my spirit; I almost instantly felt less worried.

The next day (today), a number of other wonderful revelations  came to me resulting from other blessings that together filled me with another singular and powerful thought:

“if the Lord saw fit to bless me with these additional blessings [detailed following this part] that are by comparison simple and trivial, why would he fail to bless me regarding this loan”.

This answer may not be the answer to world hunger, but to me, it felt just as powerful, and just as amazing.

 

Zoom Zoom (sorry, not a Mazda)

I like riding motorcycles. I have owned a couple in my day, but none that were what I would call a ”big boy bike”. In fact I still have a bike in my garage that I enjoy riding quite a bit. The problem is, it’s not a very big bike. It is a 1973 Honda scrambler. It’s only 185 cc’s so, although it’s fun to ride, it’s limited as to where I can take it.

In the meantime I find out that a friend of ours has a motorcycle that he’s thinking about selling. My wife tells me who’s bike it is and I am instantly filled with a remembered vision of what I recall to be a beautiful bike that, as far as I remembered, included all of the things that I’ve always wanted in a motorcycle, but could never afford to have. On top of all of that my wife brought it up because she thought I might be interested and proceeded to inform me that if it was something that I was interested in she felt we could probably afford to purchase it if the price she was told was the correct price.

To make a long story short we called the owner and had a conversation. He sent me pictures which caused me to leave drool drips all over my phone screen. Suffice it to say that as I looked at the pictures I was sent I realized i had only remembered a portion of just how beautiful this bike is.

My wife and I had a conversation and did some soul-searching and I did some praying and we decided that we would go ahead and make him an offer which he accepted.

Now this part of my story is what I previously referred to as more of a trivial blessing. Not to suggest that this motorcycle purchase is unimportant because it isn’t unimportant. It is the realization of a lifelong dream of owning a motorcycle that would allow me to basically go anywhere in the country. It’s trivial because in the grand scheme of everything that a person might want or need in their lives, wanting a “big boy” motorcycle is not one of those things that should be categorized along with blessings that are life-changing and critical like health for example.

Nevertheless it bolstered my faith and confidence along with the previous blessing to once again remind me that if the Lord would work with me and saw fit to allow me this blessing, why would he ignore me over something much more important and critical to myself and the livelihood of my family.

 

Wake up you sleepyhead

For the past year or so I have been struggling with an uncooperative thyroid gland. The end result of this struggle was a procedure about eight months ago that effectively killed my thyroid gland completely. This saved me from dying of a heart attack because my thyroid  was making my heart race so much I felt like I was going to pass out. As a result I have spent the last eight or nine months feeling exhausted and lethargic and gaining so much weight that my fat pants barely fit. This in turn causes me to be so frustrated that I find it very difficult to get up in the morning to do exercises which for me is a critical part of staying healthy.

The simple blessing here is that this morning I got up on time I went to the health club and I had a rigorous exercise followed by a refreshing shower.

The personal revelation I received from this was simple yet profound and life-changing. Simply put: I was reminded that I am capable; that I can do it and that anything is possible if I only put in the effort and try.

This day included a couple of other personal revelations and positive wonderful blessing.

However not all blessings or revelations are the kind that I am comfortable talking about on a Blog that I know my children read.

Suffice it to say that all things are connected, and when positivity enters your life, it tends to affect everything just like negativity does.

I think the challenge that we all face is to learn to accept positivity in our lives as easily as we tend to accept negativity.
“Stinkun Thinkun”… today you loose