Sometimes life can be like canoeing down a river we have never been down before. Paddling the canoe can be fun and satisfying. Much beauty and joy surrounds us, yet we never know what to expect around the next bend. We get to figure out how to take into our soul the awesomeness of life at the same time we navigate through the obstacles and challenges that are part of the river.
Often we have different opinions as to the best way to navigate. As we learn to be in harmony with the people in our canoe, keep balanced and moving forward, we can often avoid the rocks and seemingly invisible sand bars. If we are determined to paddle the canoe our own way and do not value the perspective and input of our teammate or the people who have been down the river before us, we can end up getting stuck unnecessarily on a sand bar, hidden rock, or even getting dumped into the river! 🙁
(The above photo is taken on Cedar Creek just north of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The people in the canoe are my husband Stephen, and myself)
Whoops! What happened to our gentle flow down Cedar Creek?? A tree has fallen across the width of the river! This is unplanned! Even though my husband Stephen and I were learning to work together paddling down the river, we could not have prevented the storm that downed the tree. Even our guide did not know about this fallen tree!
There is no way for Stephen and I to navigate around this obstacle. We have to face the fact that we have to change our mode of transportation! It is too late to go back to the beginning and choose a different course, and there is just no way we can navigate upstream anyway.
We end up climbing out of our canoe and into the river. Our comfortable warm shoes are now becoming water logged. We struggle to stay pleasant to each other as we attempt to carry the canoe over the fallen tree. Our friend Glenn notices our difficulty and wades over to to lend a helping hand. We finally get our canoe safely over the fallen tree and into the river again. How nice to have the help of a friend in our time of struggle.
(photos take by David Yee)
“ OUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE DETERMINES WHETHER WE CALL EVENTS OF OUR LIVES TROUBLES, OR CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES” ( Dennis Rowell, Indiana High School Teacher)