adventures

Strength

~ Extravagant Hope ~ Leave a comment

I collect coffee mugs. It makes me happy to open my cupboard, view all the mugs with the various pictures, words, and shapes, go with my gut feeling and choose a mug for my morning coffee. Perhaps it seems fanciful, but often the mug I choose directly correlates to my moods or what might be going on in life at the moment.

Over the last few weeks, the ones I’ve chosen reflect a combination of peace, calm, and strength. This morning I chose a simple, white mug with STRENGTH. on the front of it. Something about the quiet, simple words written in all capital letters with that final period at the end, just sang out to me. It isn’t fancy and eye catching. It is quiet yet firm, fierce, and unwavering – STRENGTH.

Strength is defined in so many ways. I find it fascinating the way this word is resonating, settling in, and making itself comfortable through circumstances, through a season of sifting and sorting of relationships, through life changes ebbing and flowing, and my relationship with Jesus.

We often imagine strength as something that needs heft – to be loud and obvious and it is in some ways. Physical strength is something I work on as I want to be strong as I navigate aging and continue doing the outdoorsy things that I love – hiking, camping, gardening. Isaiah 46:4 is such a kind and safe verse, assuring us that even when our physical strength does wane, we will be safe and secure. “I will be your God throughout your lifetime – until your hair is white with age. I made you and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

I am blessed in my current season of life as a military mom to have found courageous women to connect with and befriend. These lovely women get it. They understand how hard, rewarding, pride-filled and terrifying this season is with the unknowns, sudden changes, interrupted plans, loneliness, fears, the times when our soldiers are silent – trusting that “no news is good news”, and believing that God has them in His hands. Witnessing the strength these women display daily gives me hope, happiness, strength, resilience, and a safe place. I am truly grateful for them and their friendship in this season. This is a strength that is silent and often unseen, but incredibly powerful. The Master Weaver knew all along that our paths would intersect at this season in our lives. He knew how much these connections and friendships would mean and the strength we would glean from each other, and this shared experience.

As life ebbs and flows and life seasons come and go, I find there is a quiet yet fierce strength in the letting go, in the setting of boundaries and sometimes in the loss of relationships that you were sure would last a lifetime. This strength is a tough one because it is born from pain, loss, rejection, and heartache. But, if we rest in the assurance that our Creator is acutely aware of every nuance of our lives and is weaving something beautiful from these changes, pain, and the lovely surprises He plants along the way, we will see that He is strengthening and preparing us for the next season.

There is another type of strength I’ve found as my journey with Jesus continues to evolve with the circumstances He’s allowed in my life. I am learning to embrace that I am unique and so are you. I commune and spend time with Him in the specific way He created me to do, and it infuses me with peace, strength, and joy. It may not look the same for you and that’s a wonderful thing.  I have spent too much time putting myself in a religious box that isn’t meant for me and oftentimes feeling a check in my spirit that something is off-kilter – that I’m not being who God designed me to be.

There is a powerful strength in embracing the way you are created to have a personal relationship with Jesus. The feelings of safety, love, purpose, value, and compassion are beautiful and precious things. It isn’t our strength, but His, that will flow, bathe, and restore our tired and frazzled souls – strengthening us for the life path He is waiting for us to walk with Him. I hope we will let go, seek out and enjoy the journey. I think we will be surprised and delighted to see how much strength can be found in unexpected places. Divine whispers are all around just waiting for us to be strong in the silence and the waiting as we discover the beauty in the adventures ahead.

Camping in the Woods

~ Extravagant Hope ~ Leave a comment

There is nothing quite like the smell of the woods! Earthy and old, all-knowing and rich. Divine creation.

Deep inhalation floods the senses with all sorts of stimulation and primal memories; life, connection, ancient Earth rhythms.  There is something nourishing here that feeds the soul; rejuvenating, expansive, positive, and elemental. Back to our roots.

The canvas camp chair nestled in just the right spot under a giant Redwood beckons – “Come, sit, be!”

The pace of these old, wise trees slows the heart and busy mind; infuses stillness and awareness and a lovely sense of restful calm.

Leaning back and looking up, the eye sees the forever journey upward of these majestic trees; always yearning and following their source of Life – the Light. But not in a helter-skelter, chaotic way. No. The trees are stately, purposeful and fierce in their growth. Some have grown around, over, under or through whatever obstacles keep them from their Source. They know how to get there and do it unwaveringly, without frantic attempts and harebrained scheming.  There is a lesson here in the trees for me. I feel it in my bones.

Life in the woods, on the surface, can seem frenetic, but a deeper, more careful look reveals the opposite. The birds, squirrels, raccoons and other scurriers, big and small, are actually quite organized and methodical in how they go about their Creator-given tasks. Fascinating. Humbling. Teachable. Complete trust.

My Creator has given me a specific task. Am I frantic in the doing? Can I trust that by ever following my Source of Light, I will accomplish my aim? I will be enough?

If one is truly quiet, even for a moment, one can hear Nature growing, doing its nature thing; cracks and snaps of branches bowing under the weight of a naughty, scolding Jay; the tiny rustle of a fern frond, as an invisible creature winds its way on a well- worn path; the sibilant splash of a hidden stream flowing from its source high above – who knows what adventures it experienced on its way down stream.  The imagination can run wild here! That is healing.

Dusk deepens in the woods and Nature’s life sounds change from the busy afternoon.  There is a shift in the light and the night dwellers begin to venture out with different calls and purposes, as the day timers wind down and begin their settling in. Perfect rhythm. All in alignment.

Time for a campfire!

Sticks, old dried leaves and moss from the forest floor, make a perfect bed for the larger sticks and logs to rest upon. Fire!

Slowly it ignites and consumes the small sticks and random pieces of detritus that were thrown in the fire ring.  The fledgling fire is mesmerizing to watch, as flames lick and snap and dart through the wood, finding the best route and igniting all in its path.

The warmth and the crackling, snapping and popping sounds recall happy memories of camping trips gone by; of long hikes and fishing, stories and laughter by the fire late into the night or of simple, quite evenings of lulled conversation and companionable silence, as each one is captivated by the warmth and mystery of fire. 

The forest is just as active at night as it is by day, but one must listen more carefully and purposefully to know it. Nocturnal hunters, prowlers and the curious are all around, going about their business. I wonder what they imagine, as they watch us, undetected, from the dark woods.

Sleep beckons, so off to bed, soothed to sleep by the living forest.

Morning comes very early in the woods. Creatures up early to welcome the new day and begin again their Creator-given work.

Bird calls sound joyful and insistent as day breaks. “Up, up, up!” They seem to shout. Nothing is wasted, every minute important in its own way, because this is survival. This is life.

So again, begins another day camping in the woods. The adventures are endless and so are the lessons.

What will you come back with? Peace? Purpose? A reset spirit? I believe the forest is one of our Creator-given ways to rebalance and reset from our frenzied attempts to create a path we were never meant to travel…