Called to serve

Over the last 11 years I have annually traveled with my parents. Generally it has been on a cruise. I felt I was cutting their costs by a third.

My parents traveled a lot on their own, especially after my Dad retired. My Mom left her part time job years earlier after receiving complaints from her boss that she was taking off too much.

My Aunt once asked them when they were going on a mission. I think she was somewhat jealous of all the places my parents had been. I wanted to object to the idea of them going, but I hoped the idea would die on it's own accord.

I feared the day my parents would want to go on a mission. Apparently, they were waiting for my grandma to pass away.

Shortly after that event, we were eating dinner at Outback restaurant in Northern Virginia. My Mom told me they had submitted this mission papers.

“How could you do this to me?” I complained. “It's so selfish. Who am I going on a cruise with?”

My Dad chuckled at that last question.

Could be worse

Regrets? I think that is too strong of a word. I am always analyzing or evaluating what I could do better, what I should have done, what I probably should not have done, etc.

There was a short book I read when I was a kid called Could be Worse. It's a story about a grandfather who had an outrageous adventure. I remember, or at least I thought I remembered that it was a story about his attitude. All these crazy things happened to him, but things could have been worse.

Many years later, I found the book at my sister's house and started to read it to my nieces. It didn't take long to realize that the grandfather made up the whole story! I was pretty upset.

A friend of mine asked me once how things were going. I told her things could be better.

When questioned further about what could be better, as if I was losing sleep over something, I told her that things could always be better.

There was a missionary on my mission that stated his father would rather have him return home in a body bag then full of regrets. I made the mistake of using that word when saying that I had some regrets. The collective gasp was unreal.