Moving from Arizona to Colorado has been the best move for Nadine and me. I grew up in eastern Colorado in a little town between Limon and Burlington called Seibert. I graduated from Seibert High School (now called High Plains) and did my undergraduate education at University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I stayed one year in Colorado before moving away. Tennessee. Florida. Massachusetts. Lebanon. Arizona. I was away 46 years. Away from my homeland. Over half of my life.

But now I’m back. Back in my homeland and know that this is where God wanted me to be. One of the benefits of being back in Colorado has been visiting my mother whenever I want to see her. She lives about 40+ miles from our house and it takes about 45 minutes to get to her home. She lives in an assisted living facility with cloth napkins, fresh cut flowers on the table with fancy silverware. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner.

So what does she want when I come over to visit her on a regular basis? McDonalds. A double cheese burger with fries and a coke. When she turned 100 a year ago January, I wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant to celebrate the place of her choice. What was her place of choice? The Golden Arches. McDonalds.

It’s been cold out the last couple of weeks, so she doesn’t want to get in my truck and drive to McDonalds, so I bring the double-cheese burger with fries to her apartment and we have a picnic in the middle of December.

I never thought that moving back to Colorado would bring such joy to my life by having a picnic with my mom. Every hour I spend with her is such a wonderful experience with a double-cheese hamburger, fries, and a coke.

On this journey, we are going to take right and left turns on the road of life. God has some wonderful experiences for us that were never spelled out when we chose to begin walking on the new road. It means that we need to keep our eyes open to those experiences and not miss out on the simple pleasures of life.