Chicago Letter #15

Downtown Chicago



Stats:

- Flat tires: ZERO!!!!! WOO HOO
- Block Parties within ten blocks of our house: 3. Apparently, that's the thing to do in Chicago. Our street is having one this Saturday. Bounce houses, music, tons of food, all sorts of fun. They last all day long.

Of all the enemies I have developed over the last few months, I have one that has become my arch nemesis: HumidHeat. It literally sucks the life out of me! Physically and emotionally. Day after day, HumidHeat tries to get me down. It's awful. SuperBike does everything possible to keep me cool, but SuperBike and HumidHeat are a near even match up...I keep reminding myself that I'm over half way through the summer time. I think.

I have a new idea. I could make great money marketing an exercise program here in Chicago. It's centered on bike riding. However, this is no ordinary bike riding. It's somewhat like those resistance pools that you can swim in place: it provides the resistance to get a workout. The wind here in Chicago is like the water resistance in the opposite direction (somehow it is always working against me...how is that??? It's the same as the story "I walked up hill both ways"). Anyway...there are some differences. For instance, you won't swim in refreshing water, but in your own sweat. Oh! and, I didn't want another workout. That's a key difference.

I learned something really neat this week about trusting Heavenly Father. Both my companion and I felt really strongly that we should go to a certain area one day. We did. We were there for a few hours, and worked hard. We had a lot of nothing going on for the entire time. Literally - hours of going and feeling as though we were accomplishing absolutely nothing. As far as I could see at the moment, we didn't accomplish anything.

However, now I know that we did accomplish something. I don't know what it was. I don't know for whom, or in what way. As we biked away, I thought to myself: "I know we did what we went to do. I don't have any proof of that, because I didn't see any good in our time there. Yet, I know that we did something worthwhile."

I think a lot of our lives are that way. We go, do, act...and we see no results. Days, weeks, months or years later, we may see results. Later, we may still be clueless as to why we felt we should go somewhere or do something. Regardless of whether or not we know why, Heavenly Father does know why. I've always known that God knows more than I do. But, this experience was a bit different. I also knew that I had done something good that day, in that time, in that place - yet I saw no evidence of it. The key is faith. The faith that I was of use to Heavenly Father - regardless of what I saw - changed my attitude before, during, and after.

Have faith, regardless of what you see or do not see, that you are an instrument in God's hands. It gives life a little more meaning in the times that we think are lulls.