#2 - New Perspective

A New Perspective

I realized yesterday that God has given me the ability to see life from a new perspective.  Things in Spain (and probably everywhere else) never go as planned.  No matter how hard you try to plan and consider the possibilities of change, in Spain it is impossible.  In fact, yesterday, a friend said she wakes up every morning wondering how today's plans will change.

When we first arrived here I found these constant unexpected changes to be obstacles and frustrations.  I found myself constantly judging the Spanish culture and people for their lack of ability to be as organized as I was or as efficient as I desired.  Yesterday, I realized that God had changed that perspective.

We had a rare Saturday with no commitments.  The weather was warm and sunny (especially for November 1).  We have learned to seize the moments and decided to use the day to head to the mountains for hike in an area we had recently heard of.  After a leisurely morning, we packed a picnic and headed out.  The trip should have been about an hour and fifteen minutes, but we hit some traffic and it took longer.   We then of course stopped for second breakfast - our favorite tradition of family days out.  Finally we were ready to head up the mountain - we were less than 8 km away from our destination.  Then all changed.

Apparently all of Spain thought it was a great day for walk in the mountains.  The park was closed due to being at capacity.  You could not drive up to the park nor could you take the public buses.  It was 1:00 and we were told we were welcome to come back after lunch and see if the crowds had gone down.




Here we were - 120 km from home, picnic packed, plans all made, and instead of moving forward, we were at a roadblock.  It was then that I realized God had done a work in me.  The old Cindy would have been frustrated and irritated that we had done all this work and now we couldn't enjoy our plans.  I would have pouted and sulked.  Instead all 3 of us said, "so what's next?"

We wandered the town, seeing another beautiful church.  Then we headed toward home.  We saw a brown sign (these are historic markers) and decided to check it out.  Turned out it was a famous pre-historic site.  We later walked through a garden where plans have been sculpted into a variety of shapes and finally stopped for a picnic.  We ended the day with popcorn for dinner and watching a movie together as a family. 

What fun it is to see life change before your eyes without it increasing your blood pressure!