Ah Youth Long Past

I was once a hood ornament. Posing for a picture on a fine day, a Winter day I can hardly remember, except for this photograph. I am that young boy, but the boy is not yet me. We live, for now, analog lives. A friend recently lent me a movie, “The Butterfly Effect”, in which a man was somehow able to go back and change events in his life, trying to bring about happy results by avoiding tragic circumstance. It didn’t work-every change made things worse for either himself or his friends. This was a little bit like trying to play God.
I wouldn’t do it. When I look at this picture I know the problems, pains, joys and triumphs that hood ornament boy will face-and I wouldn’t change a thing. My life has been average-no horrific traumatic events, no great heroic ones, either. I have lived simply, as a child of God. In His Word He tells us that He ordains our steps, and illuminates our path. Non-Christians call it a cop-out when we say that God, Jesus Christ is Lord, directing our steps, leading us during our time here on Earth. They suggest that we are weak, not self sufficient, believing fantastical myths, deranged. This seems very strange to me.
When I was that hood ornament, my parents took care of all of my needs, led me, taught me, protected me from danger and raised me as best they could. No-one would have dared come up to me and suggest that I was deranged, weak, not self sufficient because I accepted them as my parents, obeyed their rules, lived under their authority.
I am a child of God. He takes care of me just as my earthly parents have, and I am as content, as worry-free as that young boy I used to be. I don’t Hope that things will be okay, I Know that they will, whatever the circumstance. Because He loves me. He loves you, too.