The Leaf

            I started down the trail, and I could hear so many sounds.  The water was flowing over the rocks in the creek, the wind was blowing through the trees and into my ears, and the animals were moving all about.  When I reached the edge of the creek, I stopped.  I stood there as quiet as possible.  The details I noticed absolutely amazed me.  The new things that I saw, the new sounds that I heard, they were all so vibrant and alive.

            I looked up into the trees and saw the branches draping over each other.  Leaves were lying on the ground.  The water from the creek was moving past my feet and was slowly being fed by melting ice sickles dripping down the rock’s edge.  There were birds drinking, but now they stood quietly staring at me.

I noticed a single leaf falling down from above, and as that leaf fell down toward me, I watched and began to think.  Life is so frail.  I have a limited amount time here on earth.  So what am I doing with it?  I am told life is like a vapor, but do I show it by the way I live.  Questions and concepts continued to run through my mind.

I knew that I didn’t want to forget this moment.  I wanted to hang on to these thoughts forever.  I needed to do something to take this with me.  So I started to draw a picture on the paper I had.

            While out in the woods that morning, I drew what I was feeling.  The leaf is falling slowly, not in any hurry to reach the ground, and yet the leaf’s decent is still over in a matter of seconds.  As the leaf falls, it really is never in control.  The wind takes it and there’s nothing the leaf can do.  It has to make the most out of wherever it is led.

            As I watched and pondered on my own life in conjunction with what I had just witnessed with this leaf, here’s what I came to:

“My life is equivalent to the leaf falling to the ground.  I cannot control everything around me.  The more I seek control over my situations, the less I cherish the moments I have.  I have to realize that God is in control, and I must begin looking for his purpose in my decent.  I let the winds take me wherever they wish because I know that the Holy Spirit will guide me.  I need to ask God to use me wherever I end up.  There will be a day when I reach the ground, and my time will have run out.  So I will be thankful for the time I have now. ”

Interesting Observations

Over the past few months I've started to pick-up on some things that I normally had overlooked in my life.  It's unbelievable how lucky I am to be where I'm at.  It's unbelievable how lucky I am to have a house that is far bigger than what I absolutely need.  It's unbelievable that how lucky I am to have a truck that is reliable and a car that has lasted for years.  I could continue on and on with how lucky I am to have so many things.  My wife, my job, my friends, and on and on.

I have seen so many people over the last few weeks who are not nearly as fortunate as I am when it comes to the material and monetary things, but they seem to be at even par with me on the friends for the most part.  Not having as much, it forces a person to rely on each other, to put trust in other people, and to truly trust in God.  And yet I can go through life and live by my own means, not having to put an ounce of trust in God because I do everything I can to take care of myself.

I used to thank God for the blessings that He gave me.  Thank God that He put me in the United States, with a loving family that raised me in the Church and showed me what it meant to be successful.  And I am still thankful for the things that God has provided for me, but I now see the burden that they can create when it comes to my relationship with Him.  I see how my prayers used to sound a lot like the Pharisee in Luke 18 that thanks God he was not like the Tax Collector.  I see how I am a lot like the rich man who Jesus told to sell everything.  I see how so many of us are those people throughout the Bible and yet we read God's Word as though we're the oppressed, poor, disliked Hebrews.

I think I'm starting to see how God wants me to see and not through my own broken eyes.

Truck

Well, this one's not necessarily spiritual, but then again it is because we can't separate God from anything that happens.  I really just need to vent for a minute.  I've spent quite a bit of money on my truck over the past month or so.  I got four needed tires at the best possible deal I could find.  Then I needed breaks, so I got that scheduled only to find out that I needed breaks, rotors, and 2 front calipers.

Then today I took the truck in because I needed a simple alignment.  I didn't want to ruin my new tires by making them wear unevenly.  So, I take it in and plan on it being a quick fix.  I sit there and wait just reading a book.  An hour goes by and then somebody calls me back to "look" at something.  There's a bearing going out, it needs some new rod, and then I'll get the alignment.

All in all, over the past month or month and a half, I will have spent about $2,250 on a truck that I just bought last summer.  Not to mention, when I first got it, within two weeks it needed $1,000 fix.  This is just ridiculous.