MARCH 20, 2025

                                                                                                          Life is Like Riding A Roller Coaster

             See what I did there with the title?   I made the great statement a lot more accurate than the famous one, “Life is Like a Roller Coaster”.  What a difference one word makes.  I could very easily fall down that rabbit hole but I am going to put that round table top sitting over there right over that hole and move on.

            I read about a roller coaster that was at the Nevada/California state line, that was the tallest roller coaster at the time.  The unique attraction about it was that you entered what was a black hole towards the bottom, so it looked like you were going to hit something solid.  That doesn’t sound possible to me, but isn’t that how we feel when we are in that front car going down into whatever emotion we are about to wash over us, e.g., fear, depression, doubt, etc.?

            Ali received a promotion at work yesterday.  I just know she called her mom and told her.  I found out when her mom told me what the left-over cake on the table was celebrating.  Right before that, I had been helping someone and received great news about some work on the way home.  So I am riding this high and then suddenly I crash into that solid black hole at 90 miiles and hour.  We are now a, “good night, I love you”, and a, “goodbye, I love you”, on the way out the door for work, and no, hey dad, I got a promotion today at work”.

            I could be making a big deal about nothing, but it is my dollar that paid for this roller coaster ride and I want to get my money’s worth.  Now, I believe that is how almost everyone rides that up and down wave we are trying to ride each day of our life.  If you think about it, that doesn’t have to be a free fall from the highest point into a solid wall.  Granted, it is demoralizing if you take the worst possible result from your daughter not informing you of this exciting news.

            I already know Ali and her mother have a relationship which I will never be a part of because I do not fit into that relationship.  There are many reasons why, none of which are going to put anyone in jail or even get a backhand from the pastor.  Personalities and beliefs can be a sticky mess on occasions and stubborn people make their bed and have to lie in it, as they say.  If I was to tell on my part, I desire one to be able to say why they believe whatever they believe and not just be parroting the daily accusation as truth without some evidence other than an anonymous source.  That makes conversations stop quickly at times.

            But as one can discover, I am a gregarious individual, a good listener, and able to carry on a conversation with almost anyone in the room.  But, if we seem to always be the same people in the same room, eventually the conversation has to drift past how the weather is affecting the crops this year.  Therein lies the problem as the roller coaster car will begin chugging up the tracks towards the peak.

            The ride up towards the top can be a short one if the hot topic subject is changed rahter quickly and the car starts back down before the wall can appear.  In this case, I simply give some kind of congratulations, mean it, and move on.  Or I can keep chugging up the tracks to the top, which could become the highest roller coaster possible in the Peterson house.  Here is where the roller coaster ride is just a little different than a real one.  I am chugging up the tracks at breakneck speed instead of slowly grinding my way up to the top.  And that wall is right after reaching the top and starting down on the other side. But hitting that wall at 500 miles an hour after only two feet or two miles will cause the same pain and broken bones.

            There is a side note to all of the diatribe above and that is the clacky-clack of the metal wheels on the metal track as it chugs up the tracks on the way to the top.  It is noisy and can drown out the shouts of joy from the riders.  In fact, the noise from the wheels on the tracks during the whole ride does not equate with the mood set by soft music.  If anything, it assists in making the ride even more boisterous.  What that has to do with the diatribe, I am not sure at the moment, that is why it is a side note.

            I guess even though life does have its ups and downs like a roller coaster, some of which we have no control over, there are many times we have some choices whether we get on that roller coaster with the wall waiting on the other side when we reach the top and start down.  The trick is seeing who is taking up the tickets, the guy in the red suit with the pitchfork or the Holy Spirit with the dove flying around and around and has a soft landing on the way down.

The first thing the debater wants us to acknowledge is that there is a difference in the forgiveness of original sin and then the forgiveness in the daily sin you and I commit, or at least the ones I commit. You may have reached the blamelessness of Job but I am still working on it.
But the debater has used his imagination to construct either a straw man or a red herring, take your pick. That is because the payment on the Cross covers all sin when we stand before God, (or whoever checks us in when we reach the gate), (or however the process works at our arrival in the heavens). I believe I could go down that rabbit hole I see looming before me, wide and beckoning, with days before I could return to the surface.
Alas, I must throw my ladder with a long extension across the gaping space before me and move on to the other side where my journey continues about how many times I can stop writing and start up again without a penalty being called by the referee. Did you not know that was the subject?
Now that I am safely past that temptation to veer off into the clutches of what happens when I reach the final resting place, the question of whether the payment on the Cross by the shed blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ has to cover everything or only salvation itself and then I have to keep coming back each day to admit once again I have sinned and seek forgiveness. In other words, can I lose my salvation and get it back? I have to add a few extension on my ladder to get over this huge hole that looks like it could rival the Grand Canyon.
But I am on the other side and moving at a pace that could rival one of the elite runners in the Los Angeles Marathon. I know I can’t keep up that pace for long so I better some up for air and take a break.