What really matters...

On Wednesday I went to Griggs Nature Preserve. One of the interesting things about Griggs is how secluded it feels when you are down by the waterfall, and yet how close you are to the busyness of life. Because the waterfall is so loud, I didn't even hear the traffic that was zipping by above me as I had time for me and God. Yet I know there was traffic. It's a busy road I travel all the time, and if you look at the picture below, you can see how close the waterfall is to the road. When Matt and I were getting ready for our wedding, we did premarital counseling with Pastor Tom, and he talked about the window of time we had after our wedding to create "our" normal before we naturally reverted to who we had been before the wedding. Likewise, I think we have that window after any of those "away" times when we meet God and ourselves in new ways. I have several changes I am trying to make in my window following the Women in Youth Ministry Campference

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Montreat, North Carolina for the Women in Youth Ministry Campference. It was a getaway at the time when I needed it most. I was tired and drained from a busy 2016 to this point, We had a big fundraiser last weekend, serving dinner to approximately 250 people and raising thousands of dollars for our summer mission trip. The conference was from Wednesday to Friday, and Thursday afternoon we had free time to do whatever it was we most needed. I'm not going to lie - part of me wanted to sleep. But I am so rarely in the mountains, and I really wanted to see the view. So despite my physical exhaustion, I ventured out with a group of new friends to climb Lookout Mountain.  I'm not going to lie. I was breathing heavily the entire hike. I had to stop and rest. And as a runner who has run half marathons, it was somewhat demoralizing to be having so much trouble climbing this mountain, when my climbing friends were ahead of me. But I kept