Spice It Up!

In 2024, my open water swimming started becoming monotonous, and I knew that I would need to spice it up so that I would continue with the sport.

That is just what I did! I started entering new open water swim competitions, and I started doing my workouts differently. This made open water swimming adventurous and exciting! This made me realize, during my Quiet Times with God, that He gives us a way to spice up our Bible reading so that we may keep that connection with Him going. 

I entered a couple of new swim competitions in 2024, and the one in Lake Lure, North Carolina (just months prior to Hurricane Helene), was the most scenic swim that I had ever done. This 1.5 mile swim included a refreshing wind, a view of majestic Chimney Rock (of which I got a quick look every time that I turned my head for a breath), spectators watching from their mountain homes and dockside kayaks, and a family of ducks sitting in the water watching as the swimmers came by. The temperature was fantastic and the water was calm.

It was most exciting, and even though I didn’t win an award, I was thrilled to participate and finish the race!

I loved seeing the senior adult swimmers receive their awards. How inspiring they are to me, and how they encourage me to keep swimming throughout my senior adult years!

So how does our Heavenly Father spice up our Quiet Times? By providing a silver lining to our trauma. After getting past our finish line, He changes us by giving us a new lens through which to view Scripture. When we discover our new lens and start implementing it in our Scripture reading, it really spices it up! It makes it adventurous, exciting, and addicting because we begin to see things in Scripture that we have never seen before!