Ok, well I saw his limo drive by. Yesterday around 2PM as I was attempting to take my brother to the airport in Pittsburgh, traffic was halted altogether. Curious as to why traffic was at a dead stop, I pulled into a parking lot overlooking the highway I needed to drive on to get to the airport. People were standing and looking at the road. I asked what was happening, and they said, "President Obama's motorcade is coming through!" Just as they uttered that statement, I saw motorcycles coming down the road. I quickly pulled out my iphone and snapped the photo above with the presidential limo heading to the airport.
President Obama was visiting Pittsburgh because next weekend (Sept 24-25), Pittsburgh will host the G20 Summit. "What's the G20 Summit?" Glad you asked. Here's a link that explains a bit about the G20. Essentially these are the leaders of the 20 most populated and financially powerful nations in the world. They essentially come together to talk about ways to better manage and influence the global economy. Here's a wikipedia article that tells more about who these leaders are and why they are meeting.
The Pittsburgh area is really excited for the event. If you live near Pittsburgh, I think some of the major roads will have limited traffic as the event gets under way. For me, it's pretty exciting to think that a group of twenty world leaders will be meeting just a little over an hour from my house. Of course, as you can imagine, the G20 event will draw in a variety of protestors and participants. I'm sure there will be some great news coverage in the days ahead as well. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of these meetings.
In the meantime, I'm glad traffic got back to normal quickly after the President drove by, and my brother was able to make his flight back to Orange County.
My brother, interestingly enough, also recently hiked to the summit of Mount Whitney in California. While the views were significantly different, the appreciation of the summit was highly similar I'm sure.
So this week, we all returned to our "normal" routines. I returned to Morgantown to fully engage in the prep work involved in opening a cafe, as well as the work involved with preparing a church, and a college ministry for the arrival of approximately 27,000 students. My brother returned to the busyness of caring for his wife and son and balancing responsibilities to work, family, and community in his daily life.
My dad and sister and brother in law returned to not having us around, not waking up and planning out what we would do as a family, not sharing hikes, laughs, and quality time together.
It's been a period of adjustment. But isn't that the case with life. We are always going through periods of adjustment. Some days we are on the summit, and the view is beautiful, and the wind is blowing our hair across our face. And then some days are like a valley that gets no air, and it seems somewhat sufficating.
In the middle of it all, God remains constant. God walks with us in tough times. God is our sustainance and our hope.
Sunday I was talking with my dad and sister briefly en route from a baptism at our church in Morgantown where over 60 people were baptized, and they mentioned that one of our relatives had a stroke. My sister called yesterday afternoon to tell me that the same relative, Lizzie Cooper, went to be with Jesus yesterday.
Lizzie was an amazing woman of God, and an inspiration to many. Her departure was both sudden and unexpected. She was just recently teasing my dad because he missed Sunday school (he came up to Morgantown that weekend).
Now she is with my mom who is with Jesus. Everything is better than being on the summit for them. For us, we will continue to grow and persevere in faithfulness, using our time, our efforts, and our talents to glorify our maker Who is the true satisfaction of our lives. We will remember the summits, but even more we will remember the One who gave us the summit. We will lament the valleys, but even more we will praise the One who rescues us from an eternity far worse than any temporal valley.