2015 - A Year of...

-Thinking I know something, only to find out that God really knows better.

-Realizing how great it is to give God my worries in exchange for His joy.

     Imagine: God and you hiking up a trail in the mountains. You're carrying a large, heavy pack on your back. You're trying to have a good attitude about hiking up the mountain with a large pack on your back, but in all honesty, you're getting worn out, and the scenery is losing its splendor because all you're focusing on is taking one more tired step. Then you hear a voice behind you.
     "I'll take your backpack," God says. 
     "Oh, no, that's ok - I feel like I should probably carry this," you say.
     The pack gets heavier and heavier.
    "Really - I WANT to carry it for you. I'm happy to do it! Actually, I'll carry it better than you're carrying it right now," He insists. 
     Finally you give in. He puts it on His own back and keeps hiking. It looks effortless. And you feel free as a bird, and you run, and together you laugh. Oh the joy...

-Seeing how, over time, the circumstances that seemed like big ordeals became not so big anymore!

-Learning that God wouldn't ask us to delight in Him unless He was delightful!

-Believing that, if the best choice is A, but I choose B, God will not reject me.

     "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
     even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me." (Psalm 139:9-10)

In 2015 God was big, I was small, but He still liked me anyway.

Thoughts from a Nature Walk in June...

Sometimes, when existential questions won't leave me alone, one of the most comforting messages of the Father's creation is that of simply doing what God created it to do. The warbler just warbling and going about its bird business. The cottonwood leafing out every spring, sending forth its flurries of seed fluff, growing inch upon inch, just doing what God created it to do. The milkweed, growing right underneath that bench. The wild bee balm looking over my shoulder - it didn't know I was going to come sit here and enjoy the scent of its rubbed leaves. But it grew anyway because that's where the seed fell, that's where the rain soaked, and that's where the sunshine warmed the earth. And it responded. All of creation performs to the best if its ability. And that's all I am required to do as well. The Lord won't judge the milkweed for not growing as tall as the cottonwood, and He won't judge the warbler for not singing the cardinals' song.