Believe it or not, summer has almost arrived!  Do you see the signs too?  The kids are getting “antsy” (as my Mother used to say…) and almost jumping out of their skin with anticipation of their long-awaited summer vacation.  The sweet smell of honeysuckle fills the air and the temperatures here in the south are hovering in the 80’s and 90’s already.  Recently I saw another sure sign that summer must be right around the corner ~ a “pop-up” carnival!  Even here in the south those short-lived festivals of fun and thrills show up only when the weather warms, and kids are readily available to say “Can we go – PLEASE?!” and “Can I please have another cotton-candy?”   

When I was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago carnivals came to our town occasionally, but for our family, the BIG thrill of every summer was our annual trip to “Riverview Park.”  To us, Riverview was as exciting as “Six Flags” is to kids today.  All year long my Dad would “save” his loose change in a metal baking powder can that sat on his dresser.  To the 7 of us kids, the money he saved in that little red can seemed like a million dollars! When summer finally arrived, we were oh so hopeful that Daddy would have saved enough change in the “Riverview Bank” to take us on the adventure of our year!  Of course, on “Riverview Day”, no matter how heavy or light the can was, somehow there was always “just enough”!

And oh what a place!  Merry-go-rounds, bumper cars, the “Tilt-a-Whirl”, Aladdin’s Castle, the “Pair-a-Chutes” and of course the roller coasters!  Riverview was known for its many roller coasters, all varying in speed, height, and all around ‘scariness’!  The truth is I hated them!  All that anticipation and the s-l-o-w, nerve wracking crawl up the long hill, knowing that when you finally got to the top you’d come crashing down at break-neck speed, your body being thrown from side to side, trapped in this crazy torture machine while you got sicker by the minute!  For me, these wild rides could never end soon enough!  To this day I don’t understand how people can get off of a roller coaster and say, “Let’s do it again!” 

Just give me a nice smooth, ground-level, unmoving surface please.  Boring?  Maybe, but so much easier to manage than the swirling, stomach wrenching, twists and turns of a roller coaster.  That’s how most of us feel about the roller coasters God allows in our lives too, isn’t it?  You know the ones I mean.  We all have them ~ the ups and downs of dealing with a child’s illness; or the dizzy, spinning, “out of control” feeling we have as we walk out of our boss’s office ~ now unemployed ~ yet another victim of a bad economy and “downsizing.”  Perhaps it’s the fear and uncertainty of never knowing exactly what you’ll come home to, as you live every day with the ups and downs of a family member’s depression.  Oh yes, we all know about the roller coasters of life that throw us off balance, wreaking havoc with our relationships and frequently making us physically and emotionally sick.  These are the “rides” that we fervently ask God to get us through ~ fast!  Sometimes the turmoil stops for a while, but all too often, one roller-coaster is simply replaced by another ~ perhaps even rougher and more furious that the last. 

So how do we deal with these uninvited “thrill rides” in our lives?  How do we endure when we don’t know what is around the next bend, or whether the next downward slope will send us crashing into a place so dark and deep that we fear we may never get out?  The answer, I believe, is in a lesson I learned from my daughter when she studied dance and musical theater.  As a dancer, she learned how to spin, twirl, and endure constant motion without getting dizzy or sick.  Dancers need to find a way to go THRU the whirlwind of their moves, without losing their footing or balance.  They do that by “spotting” ~ focusing their eyes and full attention on a stationery object.  They know that as their bodies are spinning and whirling, sometimes literally flying through the air, their only hope of taking the next step is keeping their eyes fixed on something stable ~ something solid ~ something that does not change or move. Hmm…That sounds like good advice for us when life sends us on yet another roller coaster ride!  Keep our eyes on something (or Someone) that does not move or change.  When the whirlwind and chaos of our life’s challenges begin to spin us out of control, when we don’t know if we can take one more crash down the steep hill of uncertainty and fear, what if we looked straight ahead?  What if, like dancers, (and probably those who love roller coasters) we didn’t look to the right or the left, but kept our eyes fixed on the only One who is sure, unmoving, unchangeable, solid.  What if, in the midst of our roughest ride, we decided not to look at the circumstances swirling around us, but instead, we looked at Jesus – the “Ancient of Days”, the One who never changes, the one who is our “Rock”.   And what if, as His Word promises, He actually has something amazing planned for us in the midst of ~ or perhaps even because of ~ this roller coaster we are riding with Him. 

Let the wind blow!  Let the ride get as rough as it will.  As for me, I think I’ll take a lesson from my daughter the dancer.  I am going to “spot” Jesus.  I am going to fix my eyes on the un-movable, un-changeable One.  I am not going to let the roller coaster of life stop me or knock me off track!  I will choose to look ahead ~ knowing that no matter how uncertain, no matter how many ups & downs, no matter how scary this ride of life becomes, our God is a “strong tower”.  We can run to him and be safe!  (Proverbs 18:10)Will you join me?  We’ll keep your eyes on Jesus!  And maybe ~ just maybe ~ when He allows us to go through our next “roller coaster” ride, we’ll be able to see through the turmoil to the One who is holding us.  Then, like any good, self-respecting roller coaster lover we’ll say, “Ok Lord, I’m ready.  Let’s do it again!