Once again I have had the chance to attend a Time Out For Women weekend. This is going to become my new habit I think. So much of my life is chaotic and this last week has been one I could have lived a million lifetimes without ever having had to endure but endure it I did. After the horrible start to the week, followed by an even worse midweek I was ready for it to come to an end. What I wasn't quite ready for though is for it to come to an end quite the way it did. I attended TOFW last year too so I thought I was prepared...guess that's what I get for thinking cuz um...yeah sorry so wasn't prepared.
Where was I headed next...lemme think...sorry my thoughts are still a little scattered right now. Oh yeah so Friday afternoon just moments before needing to walk out the door to join the girlies for TOFW 2010 I discover something that just leaves me feeling violated and angry all over again and I told Verizon I didn't even want to go. Go I did and I am so glad.
The drive up, or is it over? Over and up maybe? The drive to our TOFW venue taught me a couple of lessons. Adult women, when away from kids and husbands and crazy neighbors are really just teenagers in bigger bodies. We laughed and giggled and screamed in surround sound! It was so much fun. We arrive in the heart of the city and proceed to find our hotel but instead drive around and around and around and around and around and maybe around again. Finally we decide to just park and get our get our hind parts over to the convention center. As luck would have it, I wound up with FRONT ROW seats WOOT!
I need to back up a little bit though...back to that around and around thing. We couldn't find that dang hotel anywhere no matter how what we did. Being women we even stopped and asked for directions, but still couldn't find the hotel. As we left the parking garage and headed to the convention center we were forced to look up..or maybe we just naturally looked up...and right there in front of us just one block away was the hotel.
That experience kept coming to me over and over throughout the event but I didn't quite get it until Mercy River performed their closing song and after the last lyric was sung, they all stood there so beautifully heads lifted to the heavens. They looked up and then, at that precise moment in time, I knew where the prompting came from...
Had we have just looked up, we would have known the hotel was on our right and not our left. Had we have just looked up, we'd have known exactly how to get to where we wanted and needed to be, but it never occurred to us I guess and we remained off course.
I'm sure I'm the only one that this happens to, but when I'm down and discouraged the muscles in the my neck forget their function and my head drops. I find I look down way more than I do up. The plus side of this though is I do get to see a lot of fabulous shoes! I have always thought it was because maybe I wanted to hide the emotion in my face from those around me or because it is easier to pretend nothing's wrong when you don't make eye contact with people or the strange medical phenomenon that happens in my neck or a million other things. Or maybe, I look down to hide from the one person ready and willing and fully capable of helping me. It didn't occur to me that perhaps this was a the exact opposite of what I should be doing...looking up. Look up I say, look up.
Look Up I Say, Look Up
©Masked Marauder
When you can't see around the next bend
let alone the road's end
LOOK UP
When the light disappears from your day
and darkness appears intent to stay
LOOK UP
When you lose control and find doubt
when you feel stuck with no way out
LOOK UP
When you are out of courage and hope
when you lack the strength to even cope
LOOK UP
When you are surrounded by people yet you feel alone
when you want to just crawl under a big stone
LOOK UP
When you feel insecure and afraid
and wonder if you should have stayed
LOOK UP
When you find yourself weak
and unable to find any words you can speak
LOOK UP
Look up I say, look up to Him who knows
in His perfect like everything glows.
Look up to Him for courage and find strength
for your redemption he's suffered great length.
Look up to Him and find directions for life
certain to provide comfort no matter what your strife.
Look up I say, look up no matter how dark the day
look up and he'll show you the way.
It needs some work I know....
How many times in our lives do we drift a bit off course and look down or sideways instead of up? How many times do our struggles seem to difficult to bear and we lose our hope and our courage and our strength for no other reason than we fail to look up? How many times do we need answers and look to our friends, neighbors, family, the Internet, food, addiction, shopping, education, music, etc for the answers; answers that are often incorrect?
What if, instead of circling over and over in the wrong direction we'd have just pulled over and looked up to our Heavenly Father for his wisdom and guidance? Do you think He could have told us we were just a block off course and shown us exactly how to get where we needed to be? Do you really think He cares about us enough to help in all the little things? Of course, but then I wouldn't have had the inspiration to write this blog now would I?
