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This website is created and maintained by Megan Field
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Trapped In A Vacation A wasp droned around the warped screen door of our old familiar cabin. "Well, at least it's something live and moving," I fretted. How on earth had five acres at the end of a paved road and this old plywood shack we called "the Cabin" become our permanent address? Was this the price for clean air and quiet nights? Maybe it was too high. Maybe we should reconsider our good jobs and large church back near Los Angeles. Early each morning my physician husband drove away to the wonderful world of people and his healing mission, leaving me to consider my options. His clinic didn't need my nurse-practitioner skills, and it was two hours round-trip to any other job opportunities. "Lord," I cried, "I used to love coming up here to the Cabin on holidays. Now I feel trapped in a perpetual vacation from which I can't escape! Surely You have some specific mission for me way up here in the foothills of the Sierras. Please show me what it is. I give back to You my time (I have too much of it, Lord!), my professional skills (they're rusting fast, Lord), and my influence (can we get past the wasp, Lord?). I'm Yours to use. Please use me, and please let me it be soon, or I think this wasp is going to drive me over the edge!" Later we put in a phone, and my mother called: "You ought to consider running a healthy lifestyle program at your little mountain church," she enthused. "We're running one at our church here in Wichita, and it's turning peoples' lives around." I wasn't sure. After all, my expertise was in primary care, not prevention. "Lord, is this what You have in mind for me?" I hadn't ordered them, but one day two heavy boxes of health-education materials arrived at our door. Was Mother scheming? I refused to open them. What if I couldn't get people out to the program? What if I lost money trying? What if I made a fool of myself? I skeptically eyed those boxes for many days. Finally, with a prayer for wisdom and courage, I ripped them open. Actually and unwittingly I was unwrapping God's answer to my prayer for a mission with meaning. Since then more than 100 people have graduated from our lifestyle program. Our little church parking lot is never so full as when we are in the middle of our health classes. People with diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol have reduced or eliminated their medications and are thrilled with how they feel! Mission? Influence? Friends? All have flourished as I've walked with God through His revised plan for my life. The little green cabin has a new coat of paint now. The inside is remodeled bright and cozy. The despair that once gripped my soul has flown away with the wasp. God turned my vacation trap into a mission with meaning. And it's been the trip of a lifetime! For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11, NKJV Dena Guthrie is an adult nurse practitioner and owner of Healthy Happenings in Coultersville, California. She is a member of the Groveland, California, Seventh-day Adventist Church. **"Trapped in a Vacation" was originally published in Over and Over Again 2: 150 Adventists Share Personal Faith Stories About Stewardship : edited by Ronald Alan Knott, 2000. We are grateful for permission from Adventist Affirm to reproduce this story.
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