Bucket List

      Last Sunday Seth and I were able to go see the movie "The Secret life of Walter Mitty."  I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to, not knowing much about it.  It made me laugh but also inspired me, leaving both Seth and I discussing it and laughing about different scenes for a long time.
      When I told my sister how much I enjoyed the movie she asked me "How did you relate to it and what does it make you wish you could do?"  I had not really thought about it that way,  I am not a nerdy office worker and I don't live my life in daydreams instead of really living it in real life, but then she commented that it seemed to her that often when things impact us it is often because we can relate to them in some way. I think there's truth in that, and spent a little time trying to figure out why this movie impacted me so much, and how I do relate to it.  Maybe that's obvious.  We all have things we wish we could do, but one thing or another keeps us from doing them. As I thought about what those things were that I wished I could do I realized that most of them weren't so much things I was afraid to do, but rather things that were logistically challenging, taking a lot of time and or money, or were difficult to do or not ideal, with small children.  All this led me to make a bucket list of sorts, writing down those things I have always wanted to do, but haven't gotten around to yet.  (Some of them I have done - like live in another country for three months, but would like to do again, somewhere else.)

-Learn to scuba dive and go in a tropical location
-Go sky diving
-Live in another country for at least 3 months
-Visit all seven continents (Antarctica optional, but difinitely a plus)
-Attend the Olympics and attend at least one event (preferably Winter Olympics.)
-Visit New Zealand and Australia
-Try sea kyaking
-Live somewhere that gets a lot of snow during at least one winter.
-Live in a yurt of our making (possibly several yurts grouped together.)
-Learn to knit competently
-Take a community college class and learn glass blowing and/or pottery
-Ride on an elephant
-Compete in a triathalon
-Ride a snow mobile

    I have often thought about writing a bucket list, but have resisted because it seems easier not to write down things that don't seem attainable, after all, what's the point of talking about something you will probably never do.  I think though that really that is the point of a bucket list - putting aside all the fears and obstacles that hold us back from attaining our desires and throwing out there the things that excite and inspire us so that we never stop striving and pushing ourselves. That's how I want to live in every area of my life, trusting not myself but Christ in me to help me do what he has called me to do and not be discouraged because of the challenges that stand in my way.  I never want to look at life as a list of things that I can or can't do by myself, but to listen the Lord and his leading and trust that he can and will do in and through me all that he has called me to do and to be.