Andrea O. Freeman

Walking into work this morning, I had my usual in hand-coffee, handbag, lunch tote. It is cloudy today, didn’t watch the weather forecast but clearly we are due for rain. Sure enough, as I stepped up the sidewalk to my building, it began to sprinkle. I stopped to pull my umbrella from my handbag and all I could think was, “Lord, please hold off the downpour until I can get inside to my office…” God’s timing is perfect, and well it was so true for my morning today. Between a word I heard on the radio, my morning devotional and what occurred as I made my way in to work, it was evident He was speaking very clearly to me about something. ‘Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.’ Proverbs 19:21 ESV It is all good and fine when we have a plan. Day to day, we all have our planned pattern of events from the time we rise in the morning to the time we fall into bed at night. Most of us have established a routine of life, some of us...

I am not sure when it started, but at some point in my life I developed an extreme fear of heights. My Dad has the same struggle, so I sometimes wonder if perhaps it is hereditary? Hmm, not sure but would be interesting to research that. I remember one of my first snow ski trip experiences with my church youth group when I was in 8th grade I think. That was actually my second ski trip, so I had some experience after my first ski trip, and surprisingly, getting back on the slopes after a year wasn’t bad and the skill came back to me pretty quick. I loved it, and we would enjoy going annually for Spring Break with our youth group at UHBC in Springfield, Missouri. Awesome memories! My 8th grade year trip, I was bound and determined like many in our group, to tackle one black diamond slope. For those of you who have not been snow skiing before, that is the highest or nearly highest level difficulty slope you can take on. It is extremely steep, to the point I found myself feeling ...