7-15 Walkers Golden Ticket

Tomorrow is the big day! He should be heading home late afternoon to his new bedroom that his Mom fixed up just right for him. He and His family both being a little nervous about the transition of course as there is a lot to manage especially over the first couple of weeks. New routines, new doctors offices, outpatient dialysis, in home physical therapist, special diets, no nursing care, doctors on call, etc..... As I have said to Walker, Candy, and Laura, the first week will be awkward and nerve racking, like Candy said it’s like the tension of bringing a new born home with complications, but things will smooth out shortly. This is a walk in a sunny park compared to the dark storms we have weathered to date.

Like the sweet, blond headed Charlie in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Walker has won a Golden Ticket to enter the factory where dreams are made (Gods amazing green and blue earth filled with extraordinary things beyond our imagination). And I feel a bit like the grandpa (a very little bit like), who had been resting under the covers kinda hiding out, that gets invited to go on the trip of a lifetime with him. 

I am very excited not nervous at this moment, just  as grandpa dances around singing - I thought it couldn’t be done, but I have a Golden Ticket, it’s going to be a golden day - I get to be part of Walkers golden ticket to a new life! And I get to go with him into the Wonka Chocolate Factory (planet earth) where we will eat a never ending gobstopper (Swedish fish), ride the Chocolate river (tubing down the Ichetucknee river), float into the chamber of bubbles where you have to burp to get down (Harry Potter ride at Universal), and take the shooting elevator ride (Shikras Roller Coaster Busch Gardens), and many more.

As God has opened the door for us, for Walker, Wonka opens the door and leads the group (a normal slice of humanity like us Christians) into a beautiful and fancy yet small room that begins to close in on them and they mostly panic. Wonka says to them “never give up on what you don’t understand “. They hang tough then walk into the expanse of the Factory (earth) and gaze in awe. We get to see the world again through Walkers roller coaster vision of life.

Taking the exhilarating heights of life with him and riding, what seem to be, the terrifying downslopes only to be pulled out at the last minute by God’s loving hand. As Wonka doesn’t worry at all when one of the kids gets into trouble, like the plump German boy blocking the chocolate river suction tube, God doesn’t worry and watches wide eyed with excitement whether your soaring to the heights or crashing downward towards pending doom, because he knows your outcome because he wrote the book on your life already knowing it brings you home no matter what we think is happening. The folks are screaming at Wonka on the coaster ride, this is awful Wonka - make it stop, this has gone far enough- what a nightmare they say- while Charlie and Gramps are smiling enjoying the ride. Because  they believe in Wonka, the others don’t and question his every move.

Wonka mixes in strange things, like soccer shoes to give a new chocolate a “kick”, and they all watch in disbelief except Charlie. God does all kinds of things we do not understand making miracles at will while we all stand and say “isn’t it amazing” when it really shouldn’t surprise us believers at all. We get sick, like Charlotte who blows up into a giant blueberry, and Wonka calmly sends her to be squeezed mentioning lightly, which the parent can’t hear because their too freaked out, it’s a fairly simple operation, Gods nurses (the commonly dressed umpa lumpas - sorry nurses it’s only an analogy) take her away to be fixed - operated on and the parents curse and complain at Wonka. We certainly can relate to this.

So Walker 2.0 begins tomorrow and I will ask for prayers for the spirit of Christ to hover over our home to bring peace to all of us through this new part of our journey deep into Gods amazing grace. Amen. And Amen. And thank you.

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