A Winner

Most of you have heard that a family in Oregon has a winning lottery ticket worth 340 million dollars!! My husband and I don't play the lottery....we don't have anything against it, we just have never gotten into that sort of thing. But we have had those discussions about what if..? Of course, our first thought is of our children....build them each a nice house out here on property adjacent to us...buy them the safest cars on the market....set them up in their own businesses...take a family vacation to somewhere they have always wanted to go. Then our thoughts and dreams have run down the list of family starting with my mom and dad.....hire them a full-time chauffeur so mom doesn't have to drive...move them out here to the country with us (this is where they were going to retire before daddy lost his eyesight).....provide the means for them to go on as many missions trips as they could possibly fit into their lives. We have entertained ideas about what to do for our siblings on both sides of the family....setting up businesses for our brothers and sisters, paying back school loans they have acquired, paying off their houses so they could be debt free, buying everyone new cars that get excellent gas mileage. But, we have not only entertained dreams of material things for ourselves and our family, we have had dreams of what we could do for our friends, our church, our pastors, and a precious nun we have known for over 25 years....she is one of 12 children, she is from Ireland, and has very little money or material things. We have always said that if we came into money we would buy her a plane ticket so that every year, for the rest of her life, she could go back to Ireland to be with her family. And we have discussed dreams of being able to spend money to help those we don't know... using our money to help fund finding a cure for cancer, paying for kidney or heart transplants for those who can't afford it, setting up a children's orphanage....there is so much we would and could do if we hit the jackpot. The bottom line of our dreams are to help bring others to Christ, help to alleviate suffering and sickness, to help make this life a little more comfortable for our family and friend and help them accomplish what they think is God purpose in their lives.

Well, we haven't won 340 million, no chance since we don't even play the lottery. Our dreams are still the same...to help bring others to Christ, to help alleviate suffering and sickness, to help make this life a little more comfortable for family and friends, and to help them accomplish what they think is God purpose in their lives. This is what we attempt to do each and everyday with what God has chosen to give us in this life....truth that is illuminated through a relationship with a risen Savior, a heart that is seeped in compassion, hands and feet carrying a servant's attitude and a soul that is lead down the path of His will. Oh, we have won the lottery, the prize of knowing and following a life in Christ Jesus and the prize of a life everlasting.

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14