Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tailwinds

Today, I'm grateful I survived my turn teaching preschool:)

The long weekend was wonderful, Thanksgiving dinner tasted great, and my favorite team almost, ALMOST beat their rival. We decided to head home on Saturday since a big storm was supposed to hit on Sunday, and on the drive, Honey Bear and I talked about all our blessings and how thankful we were for them. A perfect end to a perfect trip home.

Somewhere around Cedar City, though, the wind really picked up, and we were suddenly flying down an eighty-mile-per-hour freeway with forty-mile-per-hour storm gusts slamming into our car every couple of seconds. It bugged me because we’d been making such good time up until that point, but then I wondered: How often had the wind been blowing directly behind us, silently pushing us along, and we hadn’t even noticed?

Life is a lot like that, I think. The turbulent times stand out because they’re so, well, turbulent, but the seasons of calm--even the seasons of plenty--sometimes slip past us before we even notice them. How easy it is to forget the true source of our blessings when the blessings are flowing past us on every side.

I need to do better at this. I need to be more thankful. Because I’ve lived a lot of my life in a tailwind.

14 comments:

Jess said...

Thanks for a thought-provoking post! Also, I saw your blog listed as a blog-of-the-month on Agent Query, so congrats!

Meredith McCardle said...

So true!

Ben Spendlove said...

So, you need to spend more time on a bicycle, metaphorically speaking? When your legs power your journey, you notice every breeze and a good tailwind makes you laugh with glee.

I have no idea how to live like you're riding a bike, but if I figure it out it could make a good book. Hmm.

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Jess, thanks for the heads-up! AQ sent me the newsletter with the news, but I missed the note! I thought, "Oh, how nice of them to send me their newsletter," perused it, and walked away. That's what I get for skimming:)

Thanks for the comment, Meredith!

Deep stuff, Ben. When you figure that out, you'll have to let us all know (or just write that book and then make us go buy it:) ).

Charity Bradford said...

Thanks for this post Krista. For some reason I've been stuck in the headwind today and this was a good reminder to remember the tailwind times.

Congrats on the AQ accolade!

Liesl Shurtliff said...

Love this.

I was stuck in Cedar City until Monday morning because of that storm! You could have come and hunkered down with us in the storm! But then you would have been stuck until Monday morning.

Esther Vanderlaan said...

Completely agreed ;)

Cattapan said...

I loved your last two lines: "I need to be more thankful. Because I’ve lived a lot of my life in a tailwind."

Well put! It's the kind of thing I could use engraved on a plague and hung on my wall!

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Charity, sorry you got stuck in a headwind. I hope tomorrow sends a tailwind your way.

Liesl, sorry you got stuck, and I'm sorry we didn't get stuck with you! (As opposed to without you - I'm pretty sure we both would have preferred not getting stuck at all:) ) I'm glad everything turned out okay.

Thanks, Esther.

Cattapan, in our family, we always borrow the line from RETURN TO ME: "You should needlepoint that on a pillow." :)

A.L. Sonnichsen said...

What a wonderful post! Thanks, Krista. I need this reminder, too. :)

Welcome back. I'm glad you made it home safely.

Amy

Colene Murphy said...

What an incredible post. And a beautiful point. Thank you. I needed that. :)

Krista Van Dolzer said...

You're welcome, Amy. And I'm glad we made it home, too. We heard some real horror stories from people who made the trip on Sunday (like being stuck behind a jackknifed semi for four hours in the middle of a blizzard), so I'm glad someone warned us. (That would be Grandma Dear, one of Honey Bear's grandmothers, who only watches the news when she has relatives in town so she can check the weather. Such a nice lady:) )

You're welcome, Colene. Thank you for the comment.

Myrna Foster said...

I needed this reminder. Thanks.

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Myrna, as the post implies, I needed this reminder, too.