The Thrill of Adventure: Dirt, Water, and Scrapes Included!

The setting: Our (then) eight-year-old granddaughter and eleven-year-old grandson were visiting in July a few years ago. Our daughter and her husband, Brad, left them with us while they snuck away for a few days of mountaintown r & r in nearby Telluride. We had decided before they came we would take the g-kids on their first camping excursion in our little camper – just one overnight for a starter.

With just eight years to her young story, Sophie was already deciding how she wanted to be known as someone who loves to venture out and try new things. So once mom and dad left the scene, we announced our idea to retreat into the nearby woods and camp. Sophie was immediate in her excited response: “Yeah, I wanna camp, and hike and have a fire...!”

Once we had finished setting up our camper and site, we offered a couple of suggestions for what we might do next. Sophie was all in for a hike. Her brother, David, went along with the idea but under some protest.

During the hike Sophie and David crossed a stream, scampered up and down hills, climbed some boulders, saw some wildlife. But with each change of terrain, there was an outcome that Sophie did not like – even causing her to tear up. You see, Sophie has another side of her personality that is developing as well. She likes to look good – with coordinating outfits, matching hair accessories and statement shoes. Her mom says Sophie gets her fashionista flair from Gigi (that would be me). So as the adventure turned wet, dirty and a little bloody, Sophie was struggling to focus on the fun.

At one point, when she was sure her outfit was ruined, I stopped to get her eyes connected to mine and said: Soph, you’re an Adventure Girl, right? You love adventures, trying new things? She replied with a whimper, Yes, I’m an Adventure Girl! And that was my opening for a coaching moment:

Sophie, I’m an Adventure Girl too, and do you know what I’ve learned about that? Adventure girls get wet, cold, dirty, and sometimes a little bloody.

She looked back at me wide-eyed, like she was having an aha in the moment.

How precious it was to observe her taking in this cause-and-effect connection I was making for her. She seemed to be weighing the cost of being an Adventure Girl.

Seconds later, she snapped out of her trance and back into the moment. From that point until we rounded back to our campsite she took any further physical ramifications in stride and was back to logging the firsts she was experiencing.

Something I have seen to hold true through the decades is God wastes nothing. He is the King of efficiency! (A favorite word of mine as an Enneagram T3.) He will use one incident to speak to multiple people through various vessels and means. And so, I had to smile wide when recently He brought back this Sophie story to remind me of the costs and rewards of being an Adventure Girl.

The truth is I was feeling more than a little rumpled, crumpled and bedraggled after the chaotic, challenging year I have been through. I was more than ready to change my focus to the adventure to be had inside and around the difficult events I was coming through.

To say it’s been a rough twelve months for me – and our entire family – is an understatement. And one of the many challenges we had to face was moving from the home we had been renting for over six years because the owner announced he was selling it. When our landlord let us know we needed to start looking for another place to live,

I was preparing for surgery, and our daughter-in-law was starting chemotherapy treatment for cancer that had just been diagnosed. Trying to picture sorting and packing up a house, keeping the place show-ready for realtors, and finding another suitable rental on short notice was completely overwhelming.

Well, as we all know, the show must go on, right?!

Regardless of the feeling of overwhelm, I would have to muster my courage and move through these difficult events, dependent on God who certainly can stretch me to grow my small faith, but who has never failed me or left me in my times of need.

Meanwhile, my husband (also a Type Three) went into action with what he does best: seeing the big picture and creating visuals to express it to others. He put together a timeline, graphically, showing all of the overlapping events that were to take place over the next six months.  I immediately felt my heart-rate lower as I took in the future displayed in one PowerPoint slide, color-coded to distinguish the types of events and who was the focus of needed support in each case.

Months later...By the time we were packed up, I had recovered from surgery, our DIL was almost through her chemo and having good results, and a pair of our dearest friends in Durango had offered their home to us for the six months they would be residing at their second home in Tennessee. We could not have imagined these positive outcomes back when we were struggling to wrap our heads around what was happening simultaneously in the lives of our family.

But somewhere in the in-between – where life actually happens - when I felt all the uncertainty manifesting in my body – anxiety showing itself as sleep issues, neck and head pain, brain fog...I was bringing my anxiety to the Lord and He brought back that Sophie story of being an Adventure Girl. It was as though He was playing the role I had played with Sophie, asking me:

You’re an Adventure Girl, aren’t you? You love adventure, right? You love trying new things, hiking over that last hilltop to see what new site might be on the other side? That’s what this time is now: An adventure. Yes it also feels like uncertainty; but there is more for you to see, experience, and engage in around that next corner you cannot see past from this vantage point. Reframe it. When your mind feels uncertainty, embrace the adventure of it instead.

Ok, now with this divine encouragement, I was starting to play offense...One of my favorite quotes, describing how I am wired to approach life, is by Henry David Thoreau from his book, Walden:

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."

So, I asked myself a couple of coaching questions:

What would sucking the marrow out of this in-between time of unknowns look like for me?

If I stay in the moment, instead of thinking ahead, what treasures are there about the uniqueness of this time?

What came up for me in pondering these questions in the light of His-story woven inside of my history:

Find the joy and adventure in the different, non-routine of this time.

Like appreciating the beauty of jazz because of its asynchronization. Hmm...I like that... Or seeing with different eyes as I move about my days because my routines have been, at least temporarily, erased, leaving space for spontaneity. Like soaking in the opportunity to spend time chatting with neighbors as I walk in a new neighborhood, not concerned about keeping my gait time on target or making my to-do list the driver of my hurried pace. And experiencing joyful expectancy about what new thing God may be arranging for me/us as I/we wait for His plan to unfold further.

In the end, it was about perspective. It always is, isn’t it? Invariably in life, there are multiple ways of seeing things, people, situations; and the truth is some viewpoints are more life-giving – conducive to sucking the marrow out of even undesirable situations -  while other outlooks tend to suck the life right out of you.

Well, I believe this blog post was for me, more than anything or anyone else! Ha! I thank you for allowing me to process with you. Gathering my thoughts about this transitional season I am in, has brought even more clarity and assurance of where I need to land and stand, positioning myself for what will undoubtedly become yet another testimony to God’s faithfulness in my story.

May I leave you with one last thought to ponder? You know the phrase once in a lifetime? We use it to describe something we have recognized as rare, fleeting, and usually quite personally impactful in some way. Well, I got to thinking philosophically about that, and I asked myself this: Isn’t every moment ‘once in a lifetime’? As American cartoonist, Bill Keane so famously said:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.

To consider:

Where might you benefit from a reframing in your life currently?

Is your perspective bringing you life or sucking it out of you?

Can you recall times in your history when what first seemed so scary because of the unknowns and uncertainties, turned out for your good?

It is good to travel this life with companions.

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Blessed to play a part ~

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