Packing My Parachute

I’m working on my sermon for this Sunday titled "Most Likely to Find Happiness" and thus I’m spending a good deal of time mentally chewing on the concept of happiness.  There have been many times in my life when I’ve swayed back and forth on the issue of happiness and its place in the life of Christians.  Does God want me to be happy?  What if God’s idea of happiness and my idea of happiness don’t match up?  Whose right? (chuckle, chuckle).  So I’ve be reading over and over again Matthew 5:1-12 – the text for my sermon and the famous Beautitudes and filtering the scripture for truth and wisdom about happiness. 

In my personal reflection, happiness can often be like the wind for me.  There are moments where I experience gusts that seem to lift me up and sweep me off my feet.  And almost as quickly, the wind sucks itself away and I crash to the hard ground from where it took me. Now – is this the fault of the wind or is it my fault for not grounding myself against the wind?   Perhaps both but as one who has trouble giving myself a break and feels the need to be in control, I tend to go with the later.  However, perhaps there is another side to it all. Perhaps the secret to enjoying and surviving the thrill of the gusts is to be grounded within yourself even as you are enjoying the thrill of the ride.  How many times do we forego the thrill because of fear of the pain that may come?  Could you really live life without letting the wind occasionally sweep you off your feet?  In my heart, I believe that if you are grounded within yourself, when the wind dies down it doesn’t all the sudden disappear.  It gently begins to evaporate and you fall like a leaf gently to the ground.  A landing, indeed, but a softer one.  I think I will start thinking of my holistic health as "packing-the-parachute".  I don’t want to miss the rides and thrills of life but I don’t want to be stupid or reckless.  So, I’ll pack my parachute with emotional and spiritual centeredness and leap out of the plane for the adventure.  Sounds much better than sitting in a plane all my life.  (Friends – please remind me of this post later on when I’m standing at the opened bay door with a white-knuckle grip on the plane.)

Peace –

Melissa