Here's what I was thinking as our plane touched down in Edinburgh, Scotland this morning at 10:30 local time (5:30 am Indiana time!):
I have truly arrived.
And that's because it occurred to me that if anyone had told 21-year-old me back in 1989, the last time I was in Scotland, that I would return 36 years later with my beautiful and talented wife to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary ...
That she and I would have 4 incredible children - 2 handsome boys and 2 gorgeous girls ...
That my oldest son would be proudly serving as an officer in the Army ...
That my oldest daughter would be a successful interior designer living in Myrtle Beach ...
That my second son would be using his college degree in computer science to help program drones ...
That my youngest daughter would be getting ready to study art at Indiana University ...
That I would own a house in Columbus, Indiana packed full of memories ...
That I had made a varied "career" out of ministry, from LeMars, Iowa to Pensacola, Florida to Cap Haitien, Haiti to Accra, Ghana ...
That I currently had two jobs that I truly loved and felt God's calling on ...
And that I would be working on a doctorate degree ...
If you had told me all this, I would have said:
1) I don't believe you,
And 2) What is a drone?
And 3) If all that IS true, I am glad to hear that I will achieve success beyond my wildest dreams.
(And, by the way, if you furthermore told me that I and my beautiful wife wouldn't be anywhere near to what most Americans call financial security ...
I would have said:
1) I'm not surprised
And 2) Who cares?)