Speed Boat Rides & Mama Burgers

Summer visits to see Dad in Las Vegas, Nevada, were always filled with adventure, the kind of adventure you never imagined until it was happening.

My older brother George had a friend whose older brother was a pit boss at one of the casinos. Being a pit boss was a big deal and likely still is. They were the ones who stood in the middle of the circle of blackjack tables, watching to make sure all the games were legit and there wasn’t any cheating going on.

They resembled a mafia boss with expensive suits, clearly painted fingernails, and pinky rings. They made a lot of money.

I was ecstatic when I heard his friend’s brother owned a bonafide speed boat and was taking us for a ride. Before I knew it, we were on our way to Lake Mead for the adventure of my young life, and to make things all the more fun, we stopped at the A&W Drive-In for a Mama Burger with onions. I wasn’t old enough to eat Papa Burgers yet.

That was one stop we shouldn’t have made.

They all said the waves were choppier than usual though I had nothing to compare them to. I just had to take their word for it.

The combination of the choppiness of the waves and the mama burger was more than my stomach could handle, and our adventure turned into a nightmare and battle of will to keep from blowing my partially digested burger all over the place.

I barely managed for the time being.

The ride home was increasingly difficult. It was a hot day; summer days in Las Vegas were always hot, and the combination of the speedboat ride, the Mama Burger with onions, the car ride home, and the heat led to big problems.

I was sitting in the backseat between my brother and his friend, and after a valiant fight to not barf, I whispered to my brother, “George, I’m going to throw up!”

“Pull over,” he told the driver, the speedboat owner, “my little brother’s going to throw up.”

Unfortunately, I never made it out of the car. Thankfully, my brother could get the power window down in enough time for me to lean my body over him, get my head out the window, and hurl my Mama Burger with onions all over the side of his car.

The biggest bummer was that it was a brand new, sparkling white Buick Riviera. He was a pit boss in Las Vegas.

Life can feel like a speed boat ride after eating a Mama Burger with onions.

I was recently having one of those weeks. The kind that keeps you awake at night with worry about how things will turn out. The type of worry that is relentless, and you fight it with all of your might, and while there are lulls in the level of anxiousness, it returns full force.

I start my mornings with what I call my power hour, which gives me what I need to have the most productive day possible. Every morning, in this order, I make an entry in my journal, pray, read the Bible, and fill out my daily planner.

On this particular morning, I was particularly anxious, and providentially my reading that morning was from James’s letter to Christians who had scattered to different areas because of persecution, the likes of which I have never come close to experiencing.

What I read led to one of those moments when you know God spoke to you as clearly as he ever had, directly from the pages of a letter he has preserved for centuries.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

Immediately, I put that in my prayer journal to look at every day as a reminder that when the wind of worry and doubt tosses me about, and anxiousness makes me sick to my stomach, I must ask for wisdom, in faith that God will give it generously.

I need his wisdom daily, and he is faithful to provide it generously!

James 1:5–8

Photo by Giorgi Iremadze on Unsplash