Spirit of Adventure

Today is my Mother’s birthday. We have planned a fun dinner in her honor. One that incorporates who she is and the traditions she has given our family. It should be a hilarious night if nothing else.

My Mom is a lady in every sense of the word. She is beautiful and graceful, she is loving, kind and generous. She is gentle and down to earth. Although not noticeable at first glance my mother is also quite adventurous. She has this little spirit of adventure in her that likes to peek out every once in a while. And we never know where it will lead when it does.

It’s this little hidden trait which makes her so fun. And causes the family to do a collective shake of the head from time to time. Take for example the summer she decided to spend several months in Colorado without my father. My parents love Colorado and they spend most of the summer there – together.

One summer my Dad had work matters at home and he could not get away for the whole summer. Mom is typically not comfortable travelling alone without Dad or friends but she decided that this particular year she would venture out and go ahead to Colorado and Dad could join her later.

While there Mom decided to make use of her time, branch out and meet new friends. One of the things she did was to take a wildflower cooking class. It seems the point of the class was to take nature hikes, learn about the growing wildflowers, and my stars does Colorado have some stunning flowers in the summer, then pick the edible ones and cook with them.

I have to pause here and alert you that as darling as my Mom is, she is no Betty Crocker in the kitchen, Lord love her. So we were all very encouraged by this class.

Mother loved the class. She learned so much about the wildflowers and cooking while hiking and taking in some magnificent scenery. This would have been wonderful if it hadn’t ended up with Mom getting food poisoning. Twice. It seems that some of the edible wildflowers were not edible after all. (Either that or Mom’s cooking skills really are a danger. As Mom’s cooking has never given the family food poisoning I’m going to place blame squarely with the flowers.)

Who knew something as beautiful and fragile as a butter cup or dandelion could reek such havoc? Chipmunks, marmots and squirrels eat them all the time. But wildflowers for human consumption, while not all dangerous, should be approached with caution. As tempting as it is to use nature’s beauty for other things sometimes it is best to just admire it from afar.

Temptation is like that. We see something we think will be fun or will take care of our desires and we go for it. It appears to meet whatever need we are having at that time and the danger is hidden from view. Just because something is beautiful or helpful does not mean it will be good for us. Just because something works for others does not mean it will work for us. Not every one in the cooking class got sick from the flowers.

We must be mindful of the temptations that are laid before us and first try to uncover the cloaked threat before proceeding. After Jesus was in the desert for 40 days he became very weak and hungry and really wanted the whole experience to be over. Satan tried to tempt Him using Jesus’ weakness against Him. Satan reminded Jesus who He was and that He didn’t have to remain hungry, He could turn the stones to bread. (Matt. 4:2-4). But Jesus knew better.

Was Jesus hungry? Absolutely. Was He tempted to turn those stones into bread? Scripture tells us He was. But Jesus also knew that while God had helped Moses get water from a stone to help the Israelites, in this instance getting bread from a stone would not help Him. He knew that just because something worked and was God’s will for someone else, it was not God’s will for Him. So Jesus told His enemy to take a hike.

Adventure is good for us. God loves it when we branch out and explore His world. He wants us to try new things; He just wants us to be safe and mindful when we do. To be sure that what we are doing is the right thing for us, not for someone else.

Mom never has mentioned how the food tasted with those wildflowers but she never has taken another cooking class or nature course for that matter. However, she still takes plenty of hikes through the wildflowers. In fact, she has since hiked through wildflower meadows all over the world.

She’s just mindful to enjoy the beauty from afar and let someone else do the cooking.
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