Expectations.

The path of life often begins with a journey of plans and expectations. We start out having a pretty good plan of where we are going and how we will arrive. The only problem is the uncertainty of what the middle will look like. Life has a way of dropping those uncertainties into our path when we least expect it.

We began our life together with anticipation. The only thing I knew is that I had just met this cute girl and my heart began swaying to a tune I had never heard before. As it turned out, we hit it off so well that we met everyday to go out and have fun getting to know each other.

One day ran into the next with anticipation. Time was of the essence because I had orders for Vietnam. Our four weeks together passed by at mach speed. Time had never gone by that fast for me before, nor has it ever since then. Before I knew it, I was looking out the window of a 747 as it taxied toward the runway, bound for Travis Air Force Base, gateway to the Far East.

I arrived in Phu Cat, Vietnam on Thanksgiving Day. The following twelve months were long, drawn out days filled with sights, sounds and smells of things that were new to me. The things that happen in a war zone are things that you can never adequately prepare yourself for; similar to the uncertainties that life itself, at any other place, has to offer.

The next twelve months were over in about 5 years, or so it seemed. I landed back in the States on the 4th of November 1970. Marriage, school, work, children, and church filled our lives with a myriad of sights, sounds and smells.

One day ran into the next until 34 years passed by at almost mach speed. Each day began with one expectation, yet ended up with the sun going down on another. So it was as one year ran into the next.

The cool thing about life is that no matter what the expectation, good things can be discovered in it all. Sometimes you must search with more eagerness, or through tears caused by the bad, but it is there; found by those who diligently seek the Lord.