Adventure

When I was in DC, my friend Maegan was driving and we missed a turn.  "Eh, it's no big deal.  If we get lost, we will have an urban adventure!" I said.  Then we got blocked in at the gas station or something, and we had to do a 20 point turn.  "Oh well, an adventure."  She subsequently suggested I write a blog post about adventure.  It's been one of the things rattling around in my mental queue for a month or so, and now I think I am ready to take the leap and to write about it.

I guess it wasn't until my trip to DC that I realized how much I said that -- "this is an adventure."  I credit a lot of that to my mom; "adventure" was something she said to us a lot growing up.  She worked to find fun and interesting experiences in the ordinary and the mundane, even with the limited resources we had.  I am grateful to her for those lessons.

I also credit a lot of it to lessons I'm learning these days as the Lord develops my character.  One of the things that I've learned during this year of development is that there are lots of times when I cannot control the situation I find myself in.  What I do have control over, however, is the attitude I have.  This is why I choose to view things that are on the unpleasant side -- getting lost, teaching a new class I don't know anything about, not having a life plan beyond May 2014 -- as an adventure.  It helps to reframe the situation and improves my attitude -- and helps me to see the wonder and fun in situations that I used to see as scary, annoying or unpleasant.  It also helps me to get my eyes off the discomfort and to work to learn and keep my eyes on what God is trying to teach me.

So this is why I choose to view life as an adventure -- and let me tell you, I am having one heck of an adventure this year!