Here's Inspiration at it's highest point

There are a billion places to see in the world and without trying to brag, I feel I have experienced a great number of them... But this week, I think I have been to the most beautiful place on earth. Three hours from the nearest town in the mountains of British Columbia lies a Young Life camp-quaint in size, but huge in inspiration. The view is indescribable. Surrounded by the mountains that stretch to the sky, cut into by a salt water inlet. A brilliant recipe of ocean and mountain. Seals swim around the yellow and green moss-covered rocks and regal bald eagles fly at heights that seem almost touchable. The mountains are like no other--it is 90 degrees where we are safe in our cabins, but the peeks towering above us a laced in white purity. Off in the distance kids delightful screams can be heard echoing off the evergreen trees. A yellow and red device sends kids high into the air "blobbing" them to new heights as they realize that life is bigger than they thought. Wake boards zoom by the unknowing seals and cut through the rapids with ease. Cabins are filled with unknowing high schoolers who sleep soundly, peacefully safe in their bunks. Each students life so important that God brought us all to a place so beautiful, that we might know of insignificance in comparison to the wall of mountainous strength and waters of liquid power-but also know our significance-that we are lucky enough to see what few see, this place, these feelings of completeness and fullness. Is the salt water taste of Malibu that the breeze carries to my lips the taste of what heaven will be like?

A morning in Malibu thoughts of the peaceful place enveloped my brain and as I reflect I see nothing more than the smiles of the girls I brought to camp as they accomplish things they never thought they would and experience things they never may again. Even the confusion on their brow as they process through the mysteries of God and the universe are beautiful to me. I have experienced another taste of heaven. A mountain top experience, literally as I climb 30 minutes to reach inspiration point and look down at the camp I would soon be leaving a small part of my heart at. There is nothing more beautiful than a place where God dwells. He is undeniable in the place called Malibu club on some inlet in British Columbia. My heart is still there. I am working my way off the mountain top experience to reality which nips like ice, but is real and therefore good.

Seven days in Malibu.

Desire

So many times we find ourselves desperate for something. There will always be that desire for something more. For instance, now, for me, it is marriage. I desire to find someone to settle down with and create a nice little white-picket fence life with-but reality is, that if I recieved this desire there would soon be another to follow, perhaps kids would be next, or buying a house. It doesn't end.

The conclusion I have come to is that we must be desiring something greater than, there must be an ultimate in the desires and when we acheive it we acheive contentment. I know what it is too. It is no secret and it is nothing to hide. In fact, I want to shout it from the rooftops.

Heaven. We desire communion with our Father and time with the most high. We desire a physical hug from the one who loves us more than any other. We are not desiring a boyfriend or a house or a kitten or a Happy Meal from McDonalds, we are desiring heaven--something bigger than ourselves. For the time being we will love the next cute guys, keep checking Criag's list until that 100,000 dollar dream house comes on the market and chew on our french fries... But in the end we will find ourselves content in His embrace.

Delight

I don't often think about God's love for me and the vastness of it. I think that is because, I know I can't fathom it-but the repercussions of that way of thinking is that I don't feel enough of God's love. I think I know God' love with my head, but it is just hard for me to feel the warmth of a loving embrace from God.

But lately, I have been thinking-this thinking all sparked by a conversation with my friend Christina. She told a story about her love for showering and about how recently she found herself with a broken shower. Her water pressure was reduced to a mere trickle for days on end, and for someone who loves showering that is miserable. She got to her wits end one day and grabbed the shower-head and prayed-God, PLEASE fix my shower! She goes about her shower and then hears, 'cough'-'cough'... and the pressure was back. No lie.

Now, you might think it silly-that God would answer such an insignificant prayer. There is so much hurt and pain in the world and prayers are being tossed into the abyss often and much. But the lesson in all of this, is that God truly desires to do little things for us. When he is able to do something small, like peak sunshine in thru a 3 day long cloud cover for use; something that brings a smile to our face and a warmness to our hearts. This is when He is glad. He is warmed by our simple delights; these delights cause us to delight in Him and that is what life is about.

So pray often and about anything your heart desires. Pray with a hope and an assurance that the prayer you give to God will be answered. Know that God wants us to delight in Him and is happy to give us small desires as we dream them up. Embrace those gifts. Know that we serve a God who desperately loves us, so much so that he would do anything from fixing a shower head to sending His Son to earth. What a delightful thing to meditate on.

Baseball=spring

Day Two. And I feel like I do not have much to report. I find myself caught up in the busy-ness of the day, not taking the time to think "surprise me, God". I am sad that it wasn't more obvious as lived out my day to day--but only disappointed in myself for not taking life at a slower pace and breathing in each new moment and each opportunity. But it is only day 2 and I get some slack in this life-style change... right?

The day was laced with fun encounters with friends. I was able to meet a friend for lunch where conversation was lively and fun. Then on to a grieving friends house to bear cookies where we could watch an exciting game of baseball out their window.

The baseball game really made me ponder hard on the fact that spring is so close. Though the weather did not match the sight (it was a little bitter out today)-though the sun shown through a light layer of low clouds and the boys with their purple uniforms showed the excitement of a new season. Baseball is such an emblematic way to welcome in the Spring season: Outside games, fans eating popcorn and drinking cola, and tan lines.

Baseball is not only a symbol of spring for me, but it is also near and dear to my heart because it has always been a family past time of our. You could say, in fact that we are the All-American family: with our red, white and blue decorated house, 2.5 kids (really only 2-thank goodness: point 5 would be weird) and a dog. My dad is a huge baseball fan, partial to the '61 Yankees-and I hesitate to say (ducking for the on-coming tomato storm) even a current Yankees fan. We made it a priority to see as many baseball fields as possible in our 13 moves and millions of cross country trips. I believe I even have pictures of me under 1 year old in a white bonnet cheering on some obscure baseball team-it is in my blood. So not only was the on-coming of spring a gift today in the form of a leather bound white ball with red laces... but it was also a reminder of family and all that together really brought me joy.

Amongst the hustle and bustle of a truly busy day; later in the quite reflection of a day not yet lost; I am living in that moment, sitting with 2 dear friends watching spring ushered in thru the strength of the bat against a ball, and the memories of family; appreciating the simplicity of life and happy to live in it.

Go Twins! (and maybe even-Go Yankees!)

Round Two

So, today I begin Round 2 of 'Surprise Me, God'. Although I feel like everyday should be in some small way, a Surprise Me, God day but this time around, I have a new perspective on the experiment--today Terry Esau, the writer of the book 'Surprise Me, God' spoke at our All-Area Leadership for Young Life... Hearing him speak caused me to want to begin again on the whole thing and see where God will surprise me this time. I think a part of the campaign that I didn't do well last time, was really listening to God... following Him into the surprises, instead of waiting for the surprises to come to me. The experiment is really unique because i think it give me the opportunity to see God in the small things and live out His will as I seek to walk into surprises through encounters with new people and conversations with people I may not usually converse with.

I am anxious to see where the surprises come from and what I will learn. My favorite thing about the experiment is the heightened awareness of what God is doing in everyday life. So, tomorrow I wake up and say, "Surprise Me, God" and sometimes the surprises will be great and other time they will be small and seemingly-insignificant, but still great. As Terry said, it isn't a formula or some supernatural promise that God will do magic for me--it is more a way to look at life, rosy glasses. So, today I put on the rosy glasses and hold on to my seat...

So, tomorrow I will wake up and see where God will surprise me.

Cheers.

Christmas is coming! I leave tomorrow for my beach, palm tree Christmas! Whooo Hoooo! I'm so excited to see my family and bask in the comfort it is to be home. One more event tonight, a YoungLife Christmas party. I am hoping that it is a really good time as we enjoy the movie Elf, go Christmas Caroling and eat yummy cookies! Hooray!

Today Jen, a gal in my office had her first baby, a son named Cayden Vincent, she had him at 1:30pm this afternoon and what is phenomenal to me is that at that exact time the rest of the staff were in the Nativity movie watching Mary give birth to her son, Jesus. I am so excited for Jen and Cayden and pumped to meet him! And even more phenomenal was the portral of the Nativity in this movie. I guess I have always heard the story and read the story, but not seen it in such a way that I got lost in it. I came to the realization that Jesus was just a baby... Nothing more. He caused Mary pain in childbirth and cried as he exited the womb. He suckled to his mother and fussed when he was uncomfortable. I guess that is something that I should grasp, but I never did. It was so interested to watch the shepherds and wise men be in awe of this baby that looked no different from any other baby. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when the shepherd leans over to touch baby Jesus, and then hesitates, but Mary says, "He is a gift for ALL people" and the lowly, poor, socially inept shepherd reaches out to touch him. Beautiful. That is us, you know, lowly, poor, socially unable to impress our Savior, and yet, he is here this Christmas and all Christmases for ALL of us.

What would it look like this Christmas to reach out and touch him? To reach to the baby and see his skin, his flesh and know that deep inside he is also deity. I hope I can figure this out in the next 7 days, I hope I can reach out and touch the baby Jesus.

In Humility There is Hope

SURPRISE. An answer, in part, to the request I threw out in the last e-mail for either something big to happen or for me to understand more fully how much the little surprises matter.

Still no BIG surprise. But at Andy's house today, we took 20 minutes to read devotional books and come back to our 5 faithful staff people and share what we learn. I took a devotional that was broken up by scripture passage, and I opened up to a passage from Luke.... Being that it is the holiday season, it was very fitting and I began to read a beautiful passage. I wish I could write out the passage, but I don't have the book, but it talked about how humble Christ's birth was. It talked about the stable, the smell of dung and the sweet breath of the animals. It talked about the virgin who was so full of humility that she was willing to accept her pregnancy as a gift. It talked about going from being the all-powerful, awe-inspiring God of the universe to a baby, a simple, reliant, helpless baby. What humble circumstances.

But the fact that God would choose to do this only means that he is beyond willing to work thru humble circumstances. He is willing to bring hope to even the lowliest of folks. Like me, a sinner, he brings hope to even me. In a world so hopeless, there is HOPE. In a world of few BIG surprises, there are surprises. So, even though I would still love to see a BIG surprise come in my life during this experiment, I also have to focus on the fact that Christ's birth didn't even seem like a BIG thing at the time (it was humble), but yet.... IT WAS.