Did you know "curve ball" is NOT one word? Thank you spell check.

Sometimes, hitting the curve ball can be what wins you the game.

This semester I have come to learn that I never really know where life is going to take me each day. It's like every day is its own little adventure. I don't wake up in the morning and think, "Gee, what kind of antics will today bring?" But it never seems to fail that I am shaking my head at some point every day and I think about how bizarre it is how weird my "plain Jane" life is sometimes.

I've thought a lot this semester about being in the right place at the right time. I've said that with your heart set on the Lord, you'll always be where you ought to be when you ought to be there. It's a simple concept but it's been blowing my freaking mind. It's funny how big the world can be even though you only live in a small part of it. That small part can seem big at times. We're all like cogs in the big clock of life...and by using that metaphor I don't mean to say we're running out of time...even though we kind of are...but that's not the point I'm trying to make...gee whiz this paragraph just took a sharp turn into depressing. "You're an essentially cog in the clock of your life...time is quickly running out." Okay readers, set down the razor blades and let's get back on the happy train :-) (I try very hard, by the way, to avoid emoticons or whatever the eff they're called...let's just say I'm saving them only to be used in extreme cases...moving on.)

So anyway, back to what I was saying. Every day is going to take you to a new place. Your day might be filled with hundreds of little details that shape you. Your day may be a day filled with one huge thing that shapes you. The thing to know is that no two days will ever be exactly the same. Appreciate the day that God has given us. Smile. Enjoy it. We've got one life ya'll. One. Uno. Eins. Let's have fun while we're here.

I used to think of the "curve balls" of life as always being bad things. Like when things are going supposedly really good then all of a sudden BAM. You get knocked down and can't seem to get up again. So therefore you develop a very understandable seething hatred for curve balls. But I'm beginning to see that curve balls aren't always bad. Sometimes things might be going really badly for you. You have a sucky day or a sucky person comes along and just (figuratively (hopefully)) craps all over you. You've got the little black rain cloud over your head. Then BAM. Something amazing happens.

Clouds always give way to the light. Always.

I see joy in every day. I also see the pain. But I'm seeing what's worth focusing on. Guess which one it is? Ya'll are smart. You know.

Enjoy each of life's adventures, big or small. Follow God. He'll show you what adventures are the best, the most exciting, the most worth-while. The sun will seem brighter. The trees, leafier. The birds, chirpier. And the world, happier.

So embrace the curve balls...and avoid clock metaphors when attempting to be encouraging... :-)