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April 24, 2007

"Houston, we have a problem"


This saying now carries little meaning, we throw it around to be humorous (I do all the time....of course I love quoting movies), but at one point John Swigert Jr. was aboard the flight of Apollo 13 (in case you aren't a history buff...Apollo 13 was a spaceship to the moon....ok, it wasn't a spaceship, it was a rocket, well...whatever), and he was in serious trouble...so he had to report to their Houston base. John Swigert Jr. was the mission commander of a mission to the moon to do something important..(truth be told I am not that sure of the exact mission..but it was important...trust me) ,when a true problem arose...I could take a moment to baffle you with my wisdom on the problem by using fancy words that none of us could understand...but instead I will keep it simple (mainly for myself....because I can't understand complicated things) . The problem that Mr. Swigert was reporting was in a nutshell that they had an accident that put them in a position where the "spaceship" wasn't going to be able to produce anymore oxygen or water...which obviously poses a problem for human beings (in case you don't understand, humans need oxygen to breathe...if we don't breathe we die....a bit of a problem). The crew of Apollo 13 had to have an EMERGENCY RETURN after a mere 56 hours of flight and they were unable to accomplish the mission. Bummer!

Ok, there is a method to my madness. I am not sharing this because I want to give a history lesson, but rather to tell you that tonight I had to interrupt my mission, report to my base, and have an EMERGENCY RETURN. I was at STEP tonight and I realized that I couldn't produce anymore oxygen, I was going to die! Ok, not literally, but man....I always get caught up trying to do everything on my own strength, as if any mission can be accomplished on my own! Yowza! I was soaring to space, and BAM! See, I am a "shopper", an excessive spender, and I really have had victory in this area of my life...so I thought that I didn't need to give it to God anymore, that I could handle it, and wouldn't you know it...God revealed to me that I still have a problem..Dagnabit! So, I confessed to my husband and my dear friend Cindy, and gave it back to God tonight (I did a STEP 3....gave my will over to God). See my shopping is a symptom of other problems, heart issues, the fact is rather than dealing with my feelings I end up shopping! So, here I am back at my base (my God), and I am fully aware of how desperate I am for my Saviour.....but the great thing is, just because I haven't accomplished my mission, doesn't mean God won't "relaunch" me...He is gearing me up for the next mission as I type this!


P.S. When we have issues like these, just Mr. Swigert, we must reach out and admit we have a problem, and trust God to bring us back to earth. Can you imagine if Apollo 13 hadn't reached out for help and trusted that Houston would help them? They would all be squash soup!

See all the awesome things that you can discover in STEP? You too can experience Emergency Returns on Tuesday nights 6-9pm...see you there (joking......:))

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