The weekend\u00a0before Father’s Day my husband and I went camping.\u00a0 Everything that could have gone wrong did!\u00a0 We are now affectionately referring to the trip as “The Camping Trip from !??@#@#!<\/p>\n
On the Friday morning that we were leaving I had returned home from running to find that Tony had decided that we would after all take the boat.\u00a0 That meant we had to wash it and make sure it was running before we headed out.\u00a0 It also meant that we would have to make two trips to the camp ground – one to take the camper and then one to take the boat.\u00a0 Well, what was supposed to be two trips turned into three because I had forgotten several other “key” items.\u00a0 So late that evening after everything was set up we decided to go put the boat in and maybe I could ski a bit.\u00a0 We\u00a0ended up being\u00a0plagued with boat problems the entire trip and me burning my leg while trying to help him fix it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then on Saturday evening after dinner while trying to work on the boat again our minature schnauzer named Nissi got in the trash and proceded to\u00a0help herself to\u00a0some corn on the cob.\u00a0 Now, that might not be a tragedy for you and your dog but for a dog with a very sensitive digestive tract it spells EMERGENCY!\u00a0 Sure enough….at 1:20 am Sunday morning she began throwing up.\u00a0 She threw up every hour on the hour just about all day Sunday.\u00a0 That afternoon we ended up in the Cobb Emergency Vet Clinic getting blood work, X-rays, meds for nausa, and fluids to prevent dehydration.\u00a0 After running up a nice bill they decided that there were no blockages in her digestive tract (thank goodness – that would have meant surgery and several thousands of dollars)\u00a0so we were free to take her back with us.\u00a0 What we didn’t know is that her tummy was full of the cob broken in pieces that although they were too big to go through her digestive tract they had to eventually come up.\u00a0 So yes, she threw up corn cob for the next week.\u00a0 Seriously, Father’s day was the first day that she didn’t throw up after this whole ordeal.\u00a0 I think that had it not been for the “God Moment” that I had on Tuesday the whole thing would have just been a bust.<\/p>\n
To explain the “God Moment” I have to tell you about getting the boat out of the lake on Monday evening before we were to pack up and head back on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 I usually drive the boat over to the boat ramp and drive it on to the trailer which is a “hairy ordeal” anyway but due to the problems we had I suggested that Tony drive the boat over and I would take the truck, hook up the trailor and back it down the ramp.\u00a0 I was a little nervous about this because it had been awhile since I had hooked it up by myself plus, I always have a hard time knowing if the trailor hitch is securely fastened over the ball.\u00a0 I knew I could not do this alone so I immediately remembered that Christ is to live His life out through me and so I was to let Him do this – not me.\u00a0 And wouldn’t you just know it…..He got the trailor hitched, backed down the ramp and back into the camp site driveway.\u00a0 Wow, I thought….”God, you were 3 for 3!”\u00a0 So, on Tuesday morning I am begining to pack up and keep an eye on Nissi as she is still throwing up and then Tony leaves to take the boat back with a truck load of camping gear.\u00a0 He calls me after being gone about 20 minutes to say that the trailor had popped off the hitch when he went over one of the speed bumps in the camp ground but thankfully this sweet man stopped and helped him pick up the trailor carrying the boat and put it back on the hitch.\u00a0 Well, I immediately had issue with God because I was trusting him to hook all that up through me and I just expected that it would be done right the first time.\u00a0 As I struggled with my thoughts later that day\u00a0I was\u00a0wondering why God didn’t come through.\u00a0 I felt like He let me down,\u00a0I felt like a\u00a0failure and that the whole camping trip was a failure but suddently….God spoke!\u00a0 I\u00a0sensed that\u00a0He began to tell me that all my life I have not only expected perfection from myself, I have demanded it.\u00a0 I never gave myself room to fail.\u00a0 Failure was not okay in my book.\u00a0 He said that failure is how we learn sometimes and that\u00a0under His authority that\u00a0there was room to fail and it was okay.\u00a0 It was as if I had been given freedom to fail for the first time in my life.\u00a0 I had always linked my\u00a0Identity, others thoughts of love and acceptance of me to my performance.\u00a0 If my performance was perfect then I was okay but if I failed I was not okay and something was terribly\u00a0wrong with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can imagine what criticism does to us when this is how we operate.\u00a0 So now we can relax –\u00a0in trying new things there is always a learning curve and we may make mistakes but we will learn and with Christ we are safe in Him.\u00a0 I hope that encourages you to be okay with trying new things because often times we will not try new things because we are afraid of failing.\u00a0 When our security is in Him our Identity is safe and secure and that is when it becomes okay to fail.\u00a0 God never wastes a failure but He always uses it for our good and His Glory.\u00a0 Wow….I feel better already!<\/p>\n
Dana\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The weekend\u00a0before Father’s Day my husband and I went camping.\u00a0 Everything that could have gone wrong did!\u00a0 We are now affectionately referring to the trip as “The Camping Trip from !??@#@#! On the Friday morning that we were leaving I had returned home from running to find that Tony had decided that we would after all take the boat.\u00a0 That meant we had to wash it and make sure it was running before we headed out.\u00a0 It also meant that we would have to make two trips to the camp ground – one to take the camper and then one to take the boat.\u00a0 Well, what was supposed to be two trips turned into three because I had forgotten several other “key” items.\u00a0 So late that evening after everything was set up we decided to go put the boat in and maybe I could ski a bit.\u00a0 We\u00a0ended up being\u00a0plagued<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}