Six Flags-Great America and the Stuff We Carry

Yesterday, Youth Ministry had a great trip to Six Flags-Great America with teens from Ascension and St Giles parishes.  The weather was absolutely perfect: cool enough to be comfortable, but not quite cool enough to need a jacket.  The not-needing-a-jacket was especially nice, because a lot of the rides go upside-down, and the less you carry with you, the less you are likely to lose.

On a side note, that seems to be a good rule for life: carry less.  Scripture encourages us to take only what we need and leave the extra behind.  Remember the manna in Exodus, chapter 16?  God provides food for the Israelites as they flee Egypt, and he instructs them to gather and keep only what they need each day, because he promises to give them new manna each morning.  Those who gathered more than they needed and hoarded it for later, found that it was rotted and filled with worms.  And later, in the Gospels, we also see Jesus leading the disciples in a life of simplicity.
I lived in Boston, MA for two years.  For the first year, I did not have a car.  This made grocery shopping and other things more complicated, but I learned to use the buses and trains very well.  My second year in Boston, I got a car.  Suddenly it was easier and faster to get where I was going, but I had a whole new load of worries on my mind: Boston is a congested city, so where was I even going to park this car?  If I parked it in the wrong spot, would something happen to it?  Now that I had a car, I was worried about something happening to make me not have a car when I barely missed it before.  This big expensive thing that was supposed to make my life easier was now weighing on my mind (you also have to think about insurance, registration, oil changes...).  
Sometimes it is hard to remember that when God gives us directions to live by, it is always for our own good.  But, God's plan for us is better than anything we can imagine ourselves.  I still have my car, because it allows me to do things like visit my extended family and run errands for work, and those positives make it worth dealing with the worries, but my experience with the car illustrated this particular lesson to me: God wants us to carry less and lighten our load because it also makes our minds and hearts lighter, and without all our stuff stacked-up and getting in the way, we are really able to LIVE and experience God's LIGHT in our lives more when we learn to rely on God for those things that make us happy and whole.
So, back to Great America...

 The rides were an absolute blast.  Everyone had a different favorite, but Raging Bull seemed to figure in a lot of people's top 3 (including mine).  We just had one official check-in after lunch, but it was also fun to run into people as we all zig-zagged around the park from ride to ride.  It seemed like most folks were there to ride the big scary roller-coasters, but after getting bounced-around and screaming themselves hoarse, some were content to take it easier later in the day with a loop around Hurricane Harbor's lazy river or a giggle-inducing twirl on the "cow ride".
To make sure you know what kinds of fun events are coming-up next, be sure to join our email list or Facebook group (or both), and see you at Spark on Sunday, September 11.