adjustments

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Travelling And Food – A Tough Adjustment

One of the toughest things about travelling is adjusting to the food.

Many of the adjustments when travelling are not difficult, but eating when travelling has always been tough for me.

We recently flew to Spain. So many things in Spain were the same as in Canada. 

Their roadways were the same. If you kept your eyes away from the Spanish signs, you would many times think you were driving the Canadian countryside.

It was also winter in Spain, just like in Canada. It was cold there just like at home – except for one difference: at home I’m cold when I go outside; in Spain I was cold when I was inside. Many people there don’t heat their homes like we do, so I found myself bundling up when I got indoors.

People were friendly and willing to communicate, to the point of being interested in where we were from and where we were going. 

It was just like home in so many ways. 

But then there was the eating thing. Every few hours I need a little refuelling and that’s where it got a little tricky. 

It would have been easy to eat American fast food (if you know the song, you can sing it here), but then I’d have missed out on experiencing some of the culture.

I’m not one to experiment too much when it comes to food, so when I found something that had some similarity to what I would eat back home I jumped on it. 

Pizza was one of those food items. I’m really familiar with pizza; I eat it all the time. Bu there I had a chance to experience a different slant on pizza. … I tried it twice because I wasn’t sure the first time if I’d just picked a bad restaurant.

Over all pizza is pizza: you have your crust, your sauce, your toppings and your cheese.

The crust, though slightly different, was much the same. The toppings tasted the same as back home … as long as I made sure the ham was not some Spanish ham. 

But the cheese was not mozzarella. I don’t know what they used. It wasn’t a strong tasting cheese, but it had a peanut butter quality to it – not in the taste, but just like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth, so did this cheese. 

It was just a little much.

The biggest difference was almost no tomato sauce. Pizza in Canada has a rich tomato sauce spread out over the whole pizza.

In Spain, and I’m told in Italy as well, there is very little tomato sauce – just a hint, and that might be exaggerating how much they put on the pizza.

It was this combo of sauce and cheese that turned me off of pizza – one of my staple food groups at home. 

I got by, however, and no one knew I didn’t really like it. Well, until now. 

Here’s the thing: We often project that we are fine with things, that we are mostly good with what we are facing. Sometimes we give everyone the impression that we are alright with God when we are not. Maybe He hasn’t answered a prayer for a long time. Maybe He didn’t come through for you when you had a big need. You don’t have to pretend you are okay with it. Everyone else might not know how you feel until you say it, but God already knows and He can handle it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you kept from others that they should know? Leave your comments below.

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Real Time Adjustments Keep Life Enjoyable

I’ve been thinking lately about my body, and how it has changed since I started taking medication. It’s been three and a half years of swallowing foreign substances and I figure that will continue the rest of my life.

CapsulesPills

I realize that I need to take the concoction of pills I down every morning. They are helping my body – at least they better be helping!

I never took medication until I was 56. I used to like filling out medical forms and checking “no” beside all the questions. I very rarely took even an aspirin.

But the other day at the dentist’s office, the hygienist was updating my file. She asked if I was taking any medications; my response was, “Oh ya; I sure am”.

Compared to many people, I don’t take that much, but to me, I feel like I’m taking a ton. It’s four pills a day, but I like to call it 3 1/2 because I got my doctor to reduce one pill in half.

For all the good these little formed chemicals do for me, there are a few drawbacks. One of them is with my muscles.

When I play sports – especially hockey – I feel that the circulation in my legs and feet is restricted. It was really bad at first. I couldn’t skate for more than a minute without feeling like I needed to sit down and allow the blood to flow through my veins again.

When I mentioned it to my doctor, he looked at me like I was making it all up, but told me to take a break from one of the pills for a week and see what happened.

That week I had no symptoms at all; it was great. I concluded from that experiment that it was my cholesterol pill that was creating the problem.

When I went back on that pill the symptoms didn’t return as strongly as before. I began to notice that how tight my equipment or my skates were made a real difference to how I felt on the ice.

So I didn’t tie my skates as tight, and I was gentler when it came to wrapping shin guard tape around my pads. It made a significant difference.

But this year my feet are in great pain when I come off the ice. I can’t sit down they hurt so much. But I noticed that about halfway through the game my feet stop hurting.

I’m realizing my skates naturally give a little the longer I am in them. Possibly what’s happening is that my skates get looser.

So, for the next outing, I won’t tie my skates as tight and see how that feels.

It’s little adjustments that I find I have to make to keep me doing the same things I’ve been doing and not give up on some of the things I like in life.

Here’s the thing: As natural as it is for us to have to make adjustments for our bodies as time goes on, in order to keep doing things that are meaningful to us, we also have to make adjustments to our time with God as life stages and circumstances change. These adjustments are necessary to keep us having a meaningful time with God. Don’t give up or hope to get back to God later. Make adjustments now and keep your relationship with Him fresh and enjoyable.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What adjustments to your quiet time with God have you made in the past year? Leave your comment below.