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| some of my YL fam :) |
This first post will be all about the beginning of my summer and Wilderness!
The first weeks of May I ended my Sophomore year at Baylor and with a bang I might add. The Lord taught me so much in those last weeks of school and I am forever grateful for them!!! A verse that I clung to during those weeks:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
- James 1:2-8In those few weeks I had gone through so much stress, I can't explain in words how stinky it was... but how awesome it was to be held and comforted by Jesus, my best friend, there when everything is going mad. So cool. I don't like dwelling on things, especially sad times so let's move on to some good stuff!
A week after classes ended most of my friends and I went to Wilderness Ranch for Young Life's work week to spend some time working on the camp and getting things ready for campers. Wilderness is a camp unlike most of Young Life's Colorado properties. It's main purpose is to send trips of high school kids out in to the wilderness and experience Jesus with no strings attached. No phones, no iPods, no beds, no bathrooms, no toilet paper... just straight up mountain. So naturally, I wanted to go on the trip... not. I have absolutely no other answer for why I wanted to go on the trail except for the Spirit was leading me to. For some, I sound crazy... don't worry, it was crazy in my head too. The first night of our work week I bawled because I was like uh, oh... I'm here! There's no turning back. The next week flew by and it was SO much fun. Most of our YL family went and I have never laughed so hard. I got the chance to get to know my friends on a whole other level, including my future roomie at the time, Carey Beth Patterson. Such a blessing, this divine appointing of friendship right here. Since we're cute and what not we we're dubbed Bathhouse Beauties and for the rest of work week we washed bathrooms and cabins.
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| Bathhouse beauties being productive |
After work week, a group of us leaders we're to go on the trail with some funny guides, Jason Apel and Megan Galloway... yeah, they knew what they were doing. Megan is a nurse aide kind of lady and she's starting her own Dulah company business thing... aka, she delivers life into this world, kinda like Jesus. Jason, well he was just Jason and kept me from dying so I was happy with both of these peeps. I won't go into a whole novel about my trip (but if you really want the whole run down, call me... I could talk about this trip forever) but I will give you 5 of my favorite things to happen to me while on the trail.
1. My feet didn't blister, I didn't break a bone, I didn't die of hypothermia, didn't get eaten by a bear, didn't have to wipe my butt with a pine cone and I didn't have to kill and cook my own food. These were all things I had feared would happen to me and THANK GOD didn't come true.
2. I fell violently several times into literally like four and a half feet of snow because since it was the beginning of May, there was still snow in the great state of Colorado. I am 5 feet tall and so I wanted to scream explicit things the whole time this was going on.... This was the worst thing I've EVER done EVER. BUT God is so unbelievably good and gave me Bryan to physically be my helper that week. And well, he is a trooper and whenever I was too weak, grumpy or just being a snooty booty he would lend me a hand and not complain, not make fun of me, he wouldn't get annoyed with my slow hiking or stopping every time I had to pee or adjust my pack because I, being a drama queen diva, was "dying"... He like the wonderful servant of God he is, would encourage me with verses, prayer and literal pushes to keep going. I'm really glad Bryan loves Jesus and I'm really thankful for how how much He, being Jesus, loves us both.
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| we always find heart rocks!! how cool |
3. Thank God for altitude. The higher we would go on the trail, the more I felt like my heart might explode and the more you got a cool view of all of the trees. So naturally, the higher we got, the more I would cry out of 3 things. Happiness, Overwhelm, and Frustration. Happiness, because I was so happy to be crossing something off my bucket list. Something that I knew I wasn't doing on my own and how evident that was. Overwhelmed that God was my strength for that whole week. We would hike up and I wouldn't be able to keep going and out of frustration would just sob and turn around facing the view and be so overwhelmed because all of the creation, all of the trees, birds, snow etc, etc... THAT WAS MADE FOR ME. Not to harm or kill me but for me to explore and love. How awesome is God?! BUT frustration because it took me really disliking the hike to see God's grace, glory and just wonderful things he has for me. It reminded me of the verse: Rom 5:3-5 "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
4. Chacos. Seriously. I am so thankful I was able to find a pair for super cheap because LOL we crossed a stream and it would have sunked sooo bad if I had worn my boots or anything besides my chacs across that stream... I won't write about my stream experience because it's a story to be told in real life. Ask me about it.
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| thank you Son for the sun and chacs |
5. Last but not least was the time I got to spend with my friends on the trail, some I barely knew and but all I grew to love like a little family. Super duper thankful for Kiersten and her friendship and how cool it was for her to get her booty on the trail after getting the plague from Micah. How encouraging it was to have guy friends say "You got it Lekz!!" and how funny it was to see Stephen not ever complain and eat all of our food when we didn't want to "take it to the hole" and muchas gracias to Phillip for carrying my pack when I was being a baby. So awesome to get to know Elizabeth and what an awesome friendship that blossomed there. So funny to just watch Cheridan, she's a funny gal and doesn't even try... I could go off and name off my friends but this is getting long, haha. Super cool to hear how Jesus has redeemed my friends from such lost and broken places and what wonderful servants of Christ they've come to be. Like I said before, I could write a lot about this group of homies. So thankful to have gotten to know these peeps on a deeper level, see them at their finest and weakest... except for the guys, they were all pretty strong for us girls. Even the girls rocked that trail, no whining... maybe a little, just when it was cold :)
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| my frans on the trail minus kierst |
My Mountain Playlist:
Gullible
Change Me
