The ride up/down on an escalator is quite pleasant and relaxing until the ride comes to an abrupt end and the stairs just disappear. It always brings a smile to my face when I see an out of order sign on escalators. I use broken ones every day.  They are called stairs. If you try to go the wrong way on an escalator several things will happen. First people will look at you like your crazy. What kind of person gets on an escalator going down and tries to go up? Second, you will exhaust yourself and find yourself inevitably moving up/down despite your best efforts.  Third, your journey will come to an end. The ride can’t last forever. The time that you spend goes by very quickly. Close your eyes and it will be gone (I do not endorse closing your eyes on an escalator).
   We find ourselves constantly making choices, paper or plastic, beef or chicken, vanilla or chocolate, small or large, salad or desert, etc. But we also face difficult, life changing choices involving direction. In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) a young man came to a crossroads in his life. His life up until that point had been going up. He was raised in a good home. He had been given every opportunity in life. He was a healthy young man with a job, and a family that loved him. He needed nothing, but still wanted more. And so he made a choice. He chose to get on a down escalator. And after demanding his share of his inheritance, he started going perpetually downward. Before he knew it he spent all the money and he found himself at the bottom. No matter how hard he tried to go up the escalator by getting a job feeding pigs or begging for food, he was still heading down. People must have looked at him and been perplexed. What kind of person goes on the down escalator and tries to go up? Soon he found himself physically exhausted realizing that his will power to go up would not be enough if he stayed on the escalator going down.
    He made another choice. He chose to get off and change escalators. He realized that anything on the up escalator, even standing still, would result in getting to higher ground than where he was now.Our life is an escalator that is moving us towards one place or another, either up or down. You have been on the platform of life, the crossroads, trying to decide which escalator you will take. If you choose to go up, no matter what happens, even if you sometimes find yourself standing still with the struggles of life, God will keep lifting you closer to Him. And when the ride is over you will find yourself higher than you thought possible; with God as one of His children. Many choose the down escalator. You may be one of them. You claw and scratch and try to gain ground but can’t. And the world just seems to look at you and laugh. Sometimes even you realize how foolish you are for getting on a downward course and expecting to somehow end up on higher ground. You have exhausted yourself trying to figure out why nothing you do seems to help. God wants you to realize that you have to change the direction of your life. He wants you to get off “do it yourself” escalator and get on the “love lifted me” escalator.  Reading this could be your crossroads, you’re a “ah ha” moment, your chance to change direction. This could be your opportunity to change the outcome of your eternal life. What will you do with it?  Grace and Peace,

                            Aaron Tremblay

Below are some pictures of the damage to our trees the ice storm in December brought upon us.