Aloha

Attitudes can make a world of difference.  I didn't really like the idea of Hawaii.  You'll have to excuse me.  I'm a conflict thinker.  That's the way God wired me.  As I said before, we're not really city folk.  Oahu is extremely busy and crowded.  And, crazy.  So many cultures jammed together on one little island.  I got off the plane with a bad attitude.

Don't give up on me, yet.  God had a purpose for sending us there.  I guess it began when our boys got involved in the swim team.  Eleven months out of the year, I sat on the side of a swimming pool from 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning until after dark.  Three, sometimes four days a week, depending on how big the swim meet was and where they were ranked.

The swim team brought about lots of fun memories as well as the standing, sitting, or working the meet as a timer, judge, snack bar helper, whatever.  In that environment, it was easy to get to know other parents, regardless of rank.  That's how I met an officer's wife I'm still friends with.

She was active in the Protestant Women of the Chapel and invited me to attend.  It was there I met a Campus Crusade for Christ military missionary who agreed to do a Bible study in my home.  When we made our plans, she did something she'd never done before. She handed me the first 2 of 9 booklets in the study.  My walk with the Lord at that time was weak to non-existent.

I hungrily read the first booklet, only to be disappointed.  Instead of reassuring me that I was a Christian, it raised doubts.  So I moved on to the second booklet.  That's where I found my answer.  I was what the Apostle Paul would call a "carnal" Christian.  Carnal is Latin for "flesh."  I had become a Christian in college while planning to be a missionary when I realized I didn't know the Christ I wanted to proclaim to the world.  After I became a Christian, I drifted.  The flesh was in charge of my life.

It was easier to drift when we moved as much as we did.  Who's to know whether or not we attended church?  Or claimed to be a Christian?  But, it's not an easier way to live.  Unhappy hardly begins to describe how I felt.  That's why I latched onto those two booklets and devoured them.

Booklet two not only described my plight, it had an answer.  I needed to return Christ to the throne of my life.  I needed to repent and return to letting Him be in control.  The booklet suggested I write down every sin that came to mind and then write I John 1:9 over it. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  Finally, I was to burn the paper.

However, I was in bed when I read that.  The whole family was asleep except for me.  Instead, I stayed in bed and repented then and there.  I've described repenting of those sins like a popcorn machine going off in my head.  Bitterness, frustration, anger, anxiety.  On and on the list went until I fell asleep.

After my husband left for work the next morning and the boys left for school, I sat down with pen and paper, intending to be obedient to the dictates of the booklet.  I couldn't think of a single thing I'd repented the night before!  They were gone.  Everyone of them.  God's grace is so amazing.  Even more so than His beautiful creation of the island of Oahu.