Suicidal Deer

I can hardly wait for school to start! I just picked up my books today, and am reminded how blessed I am to have received financial aid. The total was over $800! Truly God has helped me through all of this. I could not have done this without Him, and the people He has moved to support me.

I am reminded of my first semester of college and how scary yet exciting it was. One class in particular - public speaking - I was terrified to take. Yet in the end it was truly one of my favorites. Here is just one of the many speeches I had to give.

_________________

   It's 8:00 at night and the moon starts to rise just above the tree line. It's Christmas Eve and anxiously Billy heads home to his family. Over the frozen pavement his headlights beam, showing him the way. Intently he watches for black ice.

   Suddenly out of the middle of nowhere something leaps from the dense woods and onto the highway only several feet from his Dodge. It's a deer and steadfast it remains, its feet planted firmly in the middle of the road. Grabbing the wheel with both hands Billy steadies the vehicle and prepares for the collision. Of all days to hit a deer.

   We all experience a version of this sometime in our driving career. Perhaps we manage to swerve out of the way or break just in time. Perhaps we hit it instead and total our cars, sending us or a friend to the hospital. Living in a rural state such as Montana we are bound to find ourselves in some sort of wildlife accident.

   How can we stop this? How can we solve this ongoing issue? Every year, we spend $1 billion solely to vehicle damage. 10,000 people are seriously injured and 150 killed due to deer collisions in the US. Montana alone ranks #5 in the top states for such accidents.

   We need to put an end to this. The solution is simple. No deer near the highways, no more hits. As one sign posted along a back road, “Suicidal deer. Please drive slowly,” such cautions would no longer exist.

   Imagine how much safer we would feel driving down the roads at night. We wouldn't have to worry about our loved ones tangling with a buck leaping from the shadows. We wouldn't have to pay all those medical bills fixing our broken bodies because we swerved and flipped our car. We wouldn't have to spend $1 billion at the autobody and mechanic shop. We could drive confidently and at ease. Our only problem left would be drunk drivers!

   So let's take care of this! How? We all know deer hate the hunting season. They run at the crack of a shotgun. They hide deep in the forests, watching for the bright color of hunter orange. So send your cars for a paint job and upgrade your horn to the sound of a 30 out 6. Who says we have to stand for this nonsense?

Truth in Cliche

Saw this on the web and had to post it. How cliche yet so true! Indeed, even I am guilty of being too impatient. My prince will come in God's timing.

Depends on my ears...

I saw this yesterday and laughed. Its so true and I think we often find ourselves only listening to what we WANT to hear. When God's will doesn't align with ours we often tune out not realizing that we are.
I have been guilty of this numerous times. Perhaps the humor in this photo will help us never forget to be sensitive to what the Lord has to say to us.

Many times His answer is "Wait". It has been for me so many times and all too often I jump the gun and mess everything up. He may fix everything and eventually come around to saying "Now go" but by then there will have been so much time wasted. Time that, if I would have only listened and waited, could be spent invested in what He has for me to do rather than fixing my early arrival.

Today, this week, this month, this YEAR, my goal is to wait on the Lord and be lead by His voice. I don't want to take my life into my own hands because every time I have the people I love the most get hurt. I get hurt and many times I've lost my opportunity entirely because of it. That little blessing that God was going to grant me now is no longer because I couldn't learn to wait. But I will now.

I will wait on Him. I will go when He tells me go. I will stop when He commands stop. I will take the path that He has set before me. Dare to take on the challenge of letting Him lead. Dare to close your eyes and see what places you will find yourself when you take His hand.

There is a world out there just beyond our fingertips and God has a special purpose for each one of us in it. He has written our life story and it is beautiful and amazing beyond our imagining. All we need do is follow Him. All we need do is accept His hand. All we need to is open our eyes and ears and heart and be ready for His bidding. Dare you to see what amazing things happen when we dare to listen? When we dare to follow?

Random Thoughts

Summer is indeed coming quicker than a fat mouse can run to the cheddar (cheesy analogy I know; no pun intended). But I am so ready for these warm months. My favorite season of the year is almost here! And what's to spin it off? Indian Youth Camp!
Based from the camp in Hungry Horse we bus in Native Americans from all the reservations in Montana. From Rocky Boy, to Browning, to Fort Peck and Crow, we house hundreds of people. For the third year, my sister and I will be volunteering as Room Staff. I am so excited. And we head out this Sunday! May God keep everyone safe as we prepare for five days of adventurous, crazy, fun; bringing the love of God to all present.
Aside from that, work is picking up like there's no tomorrow. You know those folks who slip in the door seconds before you can turn the lock? Yep. The first of many. But I'm ready. I only pity my boss for my absence for a whole week. May our merciful Lord be with her.
To top this random post I suppose I should mention my sister in the kitchen admiring the art of onions going bad. But don't be worried. There's no mold (thank goodness) and this is just one of my sister's attributes that makes her original. Lol. I should probably go help her make dinner.

Only somebody like me would be so forgetful...

So I was heating up a pot of tomato soup - mmmm delicious eh? - and I sort of got distracted with blogspot.com (trying to figure out what to post BTW) when I heard this horrendous roar of over boiling soup. Tomato soup of all things. And the thing is we have this electric burner that doesn't cool as soon as you shut it off so in addition to it all I can't clean it up right away. So here I write this blog as the burner licks up thick tasty soup and turns it into cement on the stove. What great fun when I get to try scrubbing it all off, eh? lol. You gotta love being a terrible cook. :P