Life sometimes reminds me of how similar it can be as if you were to board a luxury liner and set sail for a certain destination. Prior to coming aboard this ship, plans have been made, a itinerary of events of what ports you will arrive at has been pre-determined. You even know what the final destination will be. Everything is completely planned out before this adventure called a cruise ever takes place.

So, you leave on your cruise, setting sail on a beautiful sunning day, a light breeze is blowing across the sparkling blue ocean. The weather is simply perfect. You could not of asked for better weather conditions. The forecast for the next few days is predicted to be excellent. There should be no problems in reaching the final destination.

A couple of days has passed by since the cruise began and now the unexpected has occurred. All of a sudden, a storm can be seen just over the horizon headed your way. Now, the ship is forced to dock at a port that was not on the itinerary. And to make matters worst, you have been informed that you can not go any further than this port. Reality begins to set in and you begin to realize that this storm has changed the plans in your life.

Being on board a cruise ship is exactly how life can be. I know from personal experience of one day making plans to board my ship called life, had my itinerary all planned out, knew beyond a shadow of doubt of where I was going to eventually be at, that final destination of where my ship of life would dock at. This was not the first ship of life that I had been on, so I was really confident that things would be just fine. But, I made the error of not planning for the unexpected. Did not plan or even think of the what if scenario. And I have to tell you, this particular ship that I boarded one day called the ship of life never made it to the intended destination on my itinerary. Why? The en expected happened, a storm arose from over the sea of life, everything went from being a beautiful sun shiny day, no clouds in the sky, to a place to where it became so rough that my ship had to dock at an unscheduled port.

Well, I must admit, when I found myself at this unscheduled port, the real battle began, called the battle of the mind. I began to question myself, did I make the right decision in boarding this ship? Why did I board this ship? Now look at the situation in my life because of being on this ship. Perhaps I boarded the wrong ship!

Then, one day, the Lord helped me to realize that I was to hard on myself. It was His will to board this ship, but the problem was my destination was not His destination. I must tell you that when it was revealed to me the Lord’s will, it helped me to adjust to this different destination or port that was not on my list.

So, one day, you board your ship of life, feeling that it is the Lord’s will to do so, and you set out intending to reach a certain destination or that final port. Everything is sailing along just fine. But, the unexpected arises in your world. A beautiful calm sea has now become turbulent, violent. A storm has arrived, something went wrong, an unchangeable situation, problem has forced you to dock at a port that was not on your list. Also, you learn of the possibility of going no further or reaching your intended destination is very remote.

Now what do you do? Don’t make the mistake and invite the battle of the mind, and begin to question yourself as to why you even boarded your ship. Don’t stay focused on the destination that you may never reach, but try to realize that for some reason you were led to another port of destination for now, and ask God to help you to deal with this uncontrollable situation. Just hang on to the belief that the Lord will help you with this ordeal now facing you. There may come a day that you will look back and be thankful for the time your ship made an unscheduled stop.

Lastly, the Apostle Paul, boarded his ship of life, destination was Rome. This was God’s will for Paul to board this ship. Then, the Lord used a storm, a unexpected situation to lead Paul first to a different destination or port that was not on Paul’s itinerary. He ended up on a Island of Melita, where a church was planted. Paul would of never seen this blessing if God had not of changed his destination.

I have written before that life is a blessing given to us from God, and even though the road before us can and does become rough, overall we can still acknowledge the fact that we love life, and that life is good. I have a friend, a former business associate who had some serious health issues arise in his life, such as, colon cancer and heart problems, which required open heart surgery. I’m glad to say that he has had a complete recovery with both issues. The one thing I always noticed about my friend during these difficult times, is he never failed to give God the credit for bringing him through these situations. Through it all my friend developed a slogan into his life, which is the following: “Every day above ground is a good day!” I have always remembered this saying, even though, I’ve been blessed to have never faced any major health issues, but, I have adapted this concept into my life, that no matter what you are or may be going through, every day above ground is a great day.

I remember one day at work, it was a cold, rainy, spring morning. And I had spoken to a employee who was entering into the plant, in which I said, “Good morning.” This young mans response, I’m sorry to say, was the same response from most other employees. “Well, I guess it’s a good morning!” Now, I must say, that this reaction, answer to my greeting did not offend me nor did I take it as a particular bad attitude toward me. Furthermore, I did not take or interpret his answer as being sarcastic. But, it concerned me as to why this young man or anyone for that matter would think this morning or any day wasn’t a good day. What would be going on in a persons life to cause this water puddle to arise. What was broken in this individuals life that was hidden. Perhaps this person had some serious problems, situations in their life. Maybe he was trying to deal with some issues that seemed to be out of control in his world, with little or no success. Perhaps his world was falling a part all around him, things on every side of his life closing in on him. And to top it all off, now we are having a bad, rainy day, getting soaked, while walking to come inside a plant, perhaps coming to a job that he can’t stand, dreading even coming to work. And, now he meets a guy like me greeting him with good morning!

There is a good possibility that this scenario depicts a large portion of our population today. They really can not see the beauty of life, maybe they have a wrong attitude, wrong concept of things around them, they seem to be unapproachable! What are they exhibiting? Water puddles in their world. And the only way that the water puddles will go away, is the unseen problems, situations must be addressed or fixed.

Of all the years that I have had the privilege of working with people, I have learned a very important concept or understanding about different individuals. When you see behavior patterns, actions that are at times not understood in the worlds of other people, such as, wrong attitudes, terrible opinions, the belief that no-one cares about them, and so on, I’ve learned to recognize that these particular situations in the lives of others are water puddles that have surfaced in someone’s life. What could be going on in this persons life to cause a water puddle to appear? It could the result of a unseen problem that needs to be addressed. Let’s look at this example here, when you walk out to your yard and notice a pool of water standing in a certain area that seems to never go away, it usually indicates a water leak somewhere. Now, just getting a bucket and dipping out this water puddle until it is no longer seen is not going to fix the situation. It will appear for a little while that everything is alright, but this will soon prove to be untrue. There is a major problem called a water line break, and the situation here is this, it could be anywhere! So, what do you do? Start digging to where you suspect the problem can or might be, with the hopes of finding the leak as soon as possible and fix it. The water puddle will never go away until the unseen problem, leak is taken care of.

So, all I want to say once again, to reinforce what has already been stated, when you happen across someone who has some visible issues, such as, wrong attitudes, negative opinions, wrong outlook on life in general, these are all possible water puddles that have come to the surface in individuals lives, because of an unseen problem in their world.

Well, here is the question that is now being asked, how do you deal with someone who has a water puddle in their life? I will admit, it can be a very challenging endeavor. One way to accomplish this is to use active listening skills and listen to what they are saying to you.

Now, let’s get back to the young man I earlier told you about at the beginning of this article, that I had spoken too on a cold, rainy, spring morning. This young man had a visible water puddle in his life, and I desired to reach him, tell him something that would convince, show him that no matter what was going on in his life, it was still a good morning. I wanted to help eliminate his water puddle. I proceeded to tell him why this was a good morning, by telling him that every day above ground was a great day. This rain that was falling could be watering the flowers planted above me. The response at this time from this young man was this, ” Since you put it that way, it is a good morning.” The whole idea was to try and fix, touch the unseen problem, and eliminate the water puddle in this young mans life.

When you can help someone to realize, admit that it is a good morning, I see a water puddle beginning to vanish away. A kind word or just a smile may be enough to help fix a unseen problem and eliminate the water puddles in peoples lives.

We were all blessed when our mother’s gave birth to us, giving each one of us a wonderful blessing called the gift of life. We go from being an infant, young child, teenager, and into adulthood. Then, we are introduced to a great big old world, to face the reality of what life is really all about.

It can be a rough transition, leaving our home, family, parents. Going from the life of being totally dependent upon our parents for everything in our world, to where we need to be more independent, and provide for ourselves.

But, in life, childhood can be a battle, the teenage years can and will be a battle, and young adulthood can be very challenging! However, even though life up to this point in an individual’s life can be full of obstacles, there are the battle’s of life awaiting for the young adult that they have never experienced, and possibly will not be taught or know about until these battles or issues arrive in their world.

What can these unknown battle’s be? They could be, for an example, where will I decide to work or what type of a career should I choose. Finding the right person to some day marry, someone I would want to spend the rest of my life with, then marriage itself. And, of course, the battle of having, raising their own children, learning, realizing what their own parents had to deal with. For the most part, these battle’s or situations are introduced to us as we quickly grow up, that they are issues that need to be dealt with. These unknown battle’s that have been mentioned will eventually be apart of most people’s lives, issues that are usually not addressed or considered until they have arrived. Here is a good example, once again we are taught the concept to get a good job, earn a good living, but we are not taught what to do or how to handle the money that we earned. Now here comes the unknown battle, we make money and spend as much if not more than is earned. No savings plan at all in the picture, or, if there is a savings plan, it is no where near what it needs to be! Credit is running out of control! Then, the hammer drops. This individual receives a pink-slip from their place pf employment. The income has come to an immediate halt. Now what do we do?

Now, the gift of life has delivered a shocking blow to this person’s world, now facing a battle that they were never taught could happen. Because this person was never taught the principles of how to handle money, now they are faced with an unknown battle-how do I survive? It is these unknown battle’s that an individual experiences that they have to learn to cope, deal with as they come. A person can’t say that they know what to do until the situation, problem has arrived. However, there is a way to survive, stand, and walk on in this blessing called the gift of life, as you will learn as you read on.

I really mean this when I say that life is beautiful, and there are battle’s, yet, a person should not look at these battle’s of life and make a determination that life is nothing more than bad luck or trouble. Here is a great example of the point that I am trying to make, we know, read of those who live in areas that are hit by tropical storms, even hurricanes. They risk, even experience the loss, complete destruction of their homes, to where they lose everything. Different individual’s who have suffered the loss of all they possess have been asked, and even I myself have often wondered, why would someone want to live in an area such as this? Why remain in an area that you know the possibility of suffering another loss of all that you have was very real? And the answer that I’ve heard is this, why would I want to move, this is my home, I love it here, it’s a beautiful area to live. We’ll just rebuild!

When it comes to this blessing called the gift of life, I know first hand of the tragedies, disasters, difficult times that can and does visit our world. There are the times that your world appears to be completely destroyed. And people in your world may wonder in their hearts, how do you stand, cope, or deal with these battle’s. How do you continue on living with this situation, problem that seems to never cease. How do you go through one disaster and followed by another, with no end in sight. Why don’t you just give up and perhaps leave?

And my own personal answer to these questions is this: My love for this gift of life helps me to deal with the battle’s that always arrive. What’s my advice to others. Just learn to see the beauty of life, and this will help you through the battle’s that visit your world. When things get rough, the battle begins to rage, always remember, you have been given a blessing, called the gift of life!