Images

Give me Jesus


I have never been one for pictures of Jesus. Only because I don’t want someone else’s impression of what Jesus looked like to get stuck in my head. I don’t think any of us can imagine the character of his God-like face, the humanity of his facial features, the sinless lines and angles formed of his life here on earth. 
This is not the same picture that hung in my Grandma Fern’s bedroom. That picture may have gotten lost in the shuffle of life. Though this is the same picture print of my Grandma Fern’s and this one has a special story. 
As a very young child laying in my Grandma’s bed, this picture held my eyes countless times. Before I fell asleep and when I woke in the mornings. I would think, concentrate and ponder; this is Jesus. I lived in uncertainty. My mother and father divorced. My mother left when I was 7.

I felt nothing as far as genuine affection.
Years of uncertainty, confusion. Adults in my life held no real security.
That image, that picture, moved with my heart through my life.
Through my young years of rebellion. Blurred memories of disappointments in myself. How good do I have to be. How could Jesus Love me? Do I want him in my life, because I believe I have some ideas of my own and he does not fit in? Who is he? What does he want of me?

Jesus calls, he gently draws on my heart. I am not ready, I know who you are, and I am not ready yet.

Who will ever love me? There is nothing in this world perfect. There are missing pieces everywhere. I feel empty, in need, and aimless. Who will save me? Who will ever love me?
As I cried out my heart in the night, I felt his presence and overwhelming love reach out to my brokenness. I surrendered. I never looked back. God’s Word became my path. I understood straight away that his Words belonged to me. His Holiness would become life inside of me. He is mine and I am his – belonging and loved.

I was 16 years old. I stumbled, I fell, I roamed off on my own sometimes, but I always felt sick with repentance when I disobeyed. 

Again, this picture is a special gift to me from my Jesus: A few years back I committed to telling  my personal story in my church of coming to know Jesus. It was not the 1st time I had shared my story. It was just at a time I felt weak, uncertain, and scared  of stumbling over words because of how personal and sacred my story is to me. 
The very next day while dropping into a flea market in my community, I looked down and saw this picture setting on the ground propped up and looking at me. $6, and I walked away with it smiling.
Again, I am not one for pictures or statues of Jesus, as I know someday I will see him face to face for REAL. But honestly, this picture holds a place of great honor hanging in my bedroom. 
Every night I lay down in its  presence. Every morning I wake up to it – I meditate, worship, praise, pray and ponder the very breath and heart of my Jesus. 
I see the long journey of my life in that picture.

Jesus was love nailed to a cross, sinless though taking with him, the sins of the world. That was PERFECT love – Our belief in God’s mission of his own son’s death delivers us from our sins, with our sincere repentance and belief.
That PERFECT love is our HOPE….. It cast out ALL fears.
The absence of fear is…JOY. We have eternal life free of all brokenness.
So in this one scripture, it presents security in God’s plan of salvation.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
1 John 4:18

Happy Trails and Life, cross country motorcycling, Orthostatic Tremor awareness, and RVing to come

Day 2 – Guymon, OK to Montrose, CO

Saturday, 5/7/2016

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Pool closed – we didn’t want to swim anyway

 

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2nd day

We left Guyman, OK. hoping to leave the flat prairie lands and constant winds behind making our way on into Colorado, but nope, we battled cross winds more than half the day. Very strong cross winds.

At one point I watched Al’s bike in front of me move several feet accross the lane at such a lean he seemed to lacked just inches of scraping pegs. And then the same gust would hit me. I hung back bracing for my turn, leaning in against the gusts just seconds behind. It seemed endless. When it’s just a couple hours, no sweat. We spent over 5 hours pushing against the prairies winds.

The semi-trucks coming from the opposite direction on this two lane repeatedly blasted my left foot off my mini boards (foot rest). Al could here me Yelp in his ear (intercom) each time so he began to warn me when a truck was coming. We will just call this the battle of the plains.

We took a well earned lunch break in a small town diner where a very friendly little ole gentleman/owner went table to table spreading great conversation and joy, he was very obviously a lover of people and life.

Not far past Pueblo the terrain began to change into canyons and mountains.

I had my playlist tunes playing volume up loudly through my stereo as we glide with curves and twist beside a rapid moving river – ‘ I finally found my hallaleluja’ , ‘good good good good good to be alive right about now’, and ‘I’m all about that base , no treble’, singing in Into my husbands inercommed ear, poor guy.

My tank was showing less than a quarter tank. Al’s tank holds a little more than mine. Ironically when we finally found a station, as we pulled up to this small generic stop in the middle of no where, we both realized we had made a stop at the same station a couple years ago on another cross country motorcycle trip to Breckinridge for some mountain riding.

Both of us layered up on that stop, as we often do with temperature changes. Preparing to climb in altitude and temperature with possibly rain.

On our way toward Gunnison while winding through the lower passes and meeting snow flurries a car coming towards us began blinking head lights to warn us, we both thought the warning was of heavy snow. But not much further there was a large group of deer on the road and on both sides. They looked at us like we were in their road. Beautiful site up so close, I laughed with pure joy. And later we also saw another large gathering of deer right beside us.

Heading toward Gunnison we road through Monarch pass with flurries of light snow and 37 degrees at the top. Not to bad, but I was ready to get back down for some warmth.

When we road into Gunnison and stopped to gas again, Al said, ‘you should go on inside and get some hot chocolate while I gas up.’ At this point it was around, 5:30pm.

We stood in side while I drank my hot chocolate with Al doing a weather watch on radar and us deciding do we stay or do we go ???? as we would be going through some tough weather with some more mountain passes getting us on down the road to Montrose our goal for the night. If we stayed it did not look any better in the morning and maybe even worse. We had originally been aiming for Grand Junction. Al ask how I felt and what I thought. And I was thinking lets get going. So we added rain gear to our layer. With under armor, jeans and rain pants and a 3 coat layer, and my throat coat added – off we went.

We made the next two passes with rain, sleet and snow coming at us and no other traffic but us traveling slowly in 37 degrees we rolled into Montrose around 8:30pm stopped at the first stop light together and Al looked over at me smiling and said, ‘I’m sorry’ and we sat there as we both just laughed. We made it.

His intercom battery had gone dead so we had been traveling through the mountain passes without communicating. I had plugged mine in and was charging it on board. We just did not consider it worth stopping for him to connect his charge.
We found some great Mexican food and then checked into the Motel 8 across the street.

Happy for a bed and warmth.

Constant wind gust beating us, rain, sleet, snow……….
We ARE both possibly hard core motorcycle adventure junkies. 🙂
Loving the journey.
And happy we share those journeys together, my buddy rider and me.