Adventure

Adventure is rarely a word used in the everyday conversation of someone my age and stage in life, but it’s been on my mind recently. Instead of quoting a dictionary definition of adventure, here's how I would describe it.

Adventure is an out of the ordinary experience, anticipated with excitement and perhaps at least some fear. It can incorporate new locales, different relationships, or varied activities perhaps never attempted before. The descriptive phrases could continue, but these will suffice for now.

As I reviewed my past 47 years of adventures with Dean, I encountered these flashbacks—traveling to Calgary for the Stampede back when a passport wasn’t necessary to cross the border from Montana USA into Canada, attending an Eastern Shoshone Sun Dance ceremony on the Ft. Washakie Indian reservation (I taught there for three years), and taking off across the boondocks in a pick-up that didn’t look like it could get up the small “mountain” Dean assured me it could climb.

Those experiences all happened in our first five years of acquaintance/marriage. Multiply the experiences by the years and I participated in lots of adventures—some of which I dragged my feet, mightily. Since I always considered myself the “sane one” in these adventures (that could be translated “fraidy-cat”), I found myself wondering if I would ever experience another adventure (outside of Heaven) now that my adventurous partner is gone.

Actually, I now believe the answer is “yes,” I can experience more adventures aside from my final, most glorious one. The reading for January 1 in Jesus Calling spoke so beautifully to this idea. Sarah Young writes that Jesus wants us to come to Him with a teachable spirit, not clinging to old ways as we enter this new year. She finishes her paraphrase with, “Give yourself fully to this adventure of increasing attentiveness to My Presence.”

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Adventure = anticipation (no fear necessary) since I know Who is planning it. BRING IT ON, 2015.