Last June our family had the opportunity to travel to Orlando for vacation. My parents, my sister and her family, and my own family were able to all go together to share the Disney experience. Surprisingly losing my dad just eight short months later it is a trip that has come to have such significant memories. One evening we had diner outside of the Disney parks. This particular restaurant happened to have a young college aged girl that was making balloon animals for children for tips. She made four wonderful balloons for my niece, nephew, and two daughters. My father tipped her well for all of the balloons and both my husband and brother-in-law threw in a tip. She did very well at our table that evening. Her talent became very inspirational to two of the young eyes that watched her turn the deflated balloons into wonderful inflated creations.   My nephew decided that he wanted to learn the art of balloon twisting after our trip. My sister and brother-in-law bought him a pump and balloons and helped him learn to make swords and dogs.   A little later last summer he and my youngest went camping with Nana and Papa. My nephew Ben taught Cora how to make the balloons while camping and she was hooked. She came home and started getting on-line and learning how to make more and more beautiful creations from balloons. She has done a couple of events now twisting balloons into fun creations for kids. Watching her eyes sparkle as she watches the children smile in delight and share their thanks with her has been priceless. As she works her magic with the balloons I am reminded of how we are like those deflated balloons without a relationship with Jesus. We are alive yet lifeless not truly knowing our purpose and potential. After we turn to Jesus and follow Him with our lives, God breaths true life into every cell of our being if we allow Him. God will twist, shape, and mold us into the beautiful being He created us to be. You see without Christ there is a void within us. Many of us convince ourselves that there is no void that we are just fine as we are on our own. Most of us try to fill the void with material things, other people, chemical addictions, adrenaline rush addictions, all sorts of things. We see as evidence many beautiful talented people who have had the world at their fingertips whom allowed addictions to destroy their marriages, their careers, and eventually their life itself. Nothing can fill the void other than Jesus. Some of the balloons my daughter tries to inflate are so resistant to the air that as soon as just a fragment of air starts to stretch them they explode.   How many are so resistant to the truth of God that they explode in anger toward Him with the opposition to allowing the heart to change.  Some of the balloons allow her to inflate them, but there is a hole in them. The air she gives for them to take shape leaks right back out. How true of us who will listen to God’s calling and tugging at our heart and we allow our old ways to create a hole in our spirit. We allow what we learn to leak right out not allowing God to truly change and shape our lives leaving us deflated. The parable of the farmer sowing seeds that Jesus shared in Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:1-15 explains this far better than I. The fact that it is written in scripture three times shows the significance and importance of being firmly rooted into the Word of God. Like the balloons our lives twist and turn. Sometimes those twists hurt, but are necessary for the growth, change, and direction God has planned for our lives. He knows what is around the next bend, what tomorrow brings, and He can create beauty from any trial we face.   My prayer is for me to let go of me and all resistance I have to allowing God to fill me, mold, me and shape me. I pray that He can turn me into all that He has planned for His glory and purpose.