I have always enjoyed happy surprises. This past week I have enjoyed several of them. You might be one of many who enjoyed one of them on Sunday evening when the Vikings pulled it off to win the big game! It is not a secret that I don’t even enjoy football much, much less usually struggle to understand all the parts of the game. But for some reason I was excited to see how this week’s game turned out! Maybe because there was so much Minnesota energy riding on it this time.
I was talking on the phone to a good friend out in Washington State when the game had thirty-seven seconds to go. They were also watching the game and rooting for Minnesota. All of a sudden both of us were yelling into the phone, while watching the same events on our TV screens. How crazy was that! My mom was reading the newspaper, looked up at me in shock, and said, “ You told me you don’t even like football!” I assured her that was pretty much true, but at that point I was caught up in the excitement of the moment. SKOL!!!! It will be fun to see what next weekend brings!
Another surprise moment came when, Keenum, in an after game interview, stated that this win was the third most important thing in his life. First, he said, was his faith in Jesus Christ, and second was his marriage to his wife. It was so great that he was not afraid or timid to boldly express his priorities and beliefs to the public.
We have enjoyed having our 21 month old granddaughter, Selah, stay with us three days this past week. Her daddy, Peter, calls her “ a workout”, and that she is! You can’t take your eyes off her for a minute, or you might be rescuing her from some dangerous activity. When she is here with us, I have to focus on her. I don’t even try to plan any other projects…she IS the center of our activity.
I was finally getting time to undecorate the house from the Christmas season. Some of the main things had been put away, but our two trees still needed to be untrimmed. Selah was “helping” me, but before we could get much done, the smaller tree started to come crashing down as she pulled on an ornament. I grabbed it before it hit the floor, but a few ornaments flew across the carpet. To my delight, one of them was a shiny shape of Alaska!
We had actually received this pretty ornament from our niece in Anchorage right before Christmas. She wanted us to remember being with them this past August, and all the wonderful sights we had seen. When we opened the package, I handed it to my mom. About an hour later it was no where to be found. We searched the table among the newspapers, on the floor, and I even went through the torn wrappings in the trash in case I had thrown it away. How could it be gone? It was a mystery to all of us where it had disappeared.
I took the ornament to my mom to show her that the lost had been found. When I told her it had been on the tree all of this time, she suddenly remembered that she had hung it there! She said she remembered walking over and looking for a perfect spot to put it, after I gave it to her to look at. It had escaped her memory while we were searching for it. But it was just one more happy surprise to find it.
This past week I also met a new friend. Cliff was walking slowly and deliberately in front of me. His arms and legs were supported with sturdy crutches as he continued to walk among many who were getting some winter exercise inside the old Western Mall in Sioux Falls. I said a whispered prayer for him, and as I came closer I lightly touched his shoulder.
As he turned to look at me, I told him he was inspiring me to do better in my own exercise time of walking. As we walked side by side, he spilled out his story to me. I learned that he had been in a serious car accident. He was told he would never stand up again, much less walk. As he continued to share, he told me he had to sit down for a while. His brow was sweating from the work he was doing to just move his body one step at a time.
Cliff told me about his family, about losing his wife a couple years ago, and being mostly on his own. He was determined to be independent again. By the time we finished talking, he walked out the door to his car, which he just started driving again in the last month. Although his ankles are paralyzed, he has enough feeling in the bottom of his feet to use the foot pedals in the car. I told Cliff I would pray for him, and he told me one other person had told him that. As I am keeping that promise for him, his determination and grit brings a smile to my heart.
As I think about it, if I look at the world around me like Selah does every day, I probably would find many more happy surprises. To her, life is one big adventure!
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