Best of Blogs #8

I Gave Devil's Lake a Foothold, originally posted 5/20/06.

Wow. What a great camping trip that was. I'm so glad I went.

In a period of not much more than 24 hours, during which I didn't even have any time alone with God to pray or read my Bible, God did some pretty awesome things in my heart.

He gave me a lot of peace about some stuff that I needed peace about. Lying in my sleeping bag last night, worrying, God spoke to me in the silence, reminding me that I can trust Him, and He knows what He's doing with my life.

He helped me see His faithfulness in my life, mostly through conversations with others. I'll blog soon about the things God has taught me and brought me through in the past year, and a lot of it has to do with this point. Let me sum up by saying that a year ago I knew no one here outside of work, and after months of loneliness and just the past few months of good friendships, it was so awesome to see how God has brought me people to go camping with. And none of my closest friends were even on the trip. The people I knew as more than just acquaintances were few, and a year ago I would have been pretty introverted in that kind of situation and not been able to have good conversations. I probably would have clung to the people I already knew and not met anyone knew. But through the process God has brought me through in the past year, He has been shaping me and I am so glad because I got to have awesome conversations with people and get to know some neat people. I love people. They are so unique and fun and beautiful.

Today we went on a nice long, beautiful hike. Part of the hike involved climbing about 500 feet almost vertically up a rocky bluff. Now, ordinarily this would NOT be something I would do. I'm not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of falling to my death from unsafe footing. But I did it, and I'm so glad I did. I kept thinking of the line from The Rest of God that I quoted a few days ago - "It's just that you brushed death and escaped. It's that you tasted life and came back for more." No, I did not brush death, or even do anything that would seem terribly dangerous to most people. But I did something that, for me, required courage and in the end was completely fun and exhilarating. I finished that climb wanting to be stretched more and to have more adventures. It will always be a process, but I'm excited to see where God will go with that one.

And of course, the scenery (and weather) was simply beautiful. It's so amazing to look at vast hills and trees and boulders and think that in one word God just spoke them into existence. At first it made me feel small, only then I thought to myself, I think that driving through the city you ought to be equally, if not more amazed at God's creation, because you see so many people there and people are His most beautiful creation, made in His image. As a person, I am one of God's most beautiful creations. Which is crazy because my heart can be pretty ugly sometimes.

Then there was the drive home, which I did alone because I had to leave early. A two hour drive alone seemed like 15 minutes to me, and my cheekbones hurt from smiling so much. I was just praying and praising God and singing to Him the whole way home, and smiling so huge because I was just feeling so filled with Him and so grateful for all that He has done in my life in the past year, and in the past 24 hours