First of all: Vacation. This time was a welcome relief from some rather intense school and work stress as of late. It was also a beautiful time just getting to reconnect with my siblings especially, and remember why I finally decided not to kill them all off while growing up. Come to find out they are really pretty stellar people. I think I could go down the list right now and name ways that each and every one of them has enriched my life! In fact I think I shall... but maybe in another blog post. Also, it was neat to see my uncle enjoying life and laughing with us. We pulled out home movies one night that we had made of
each other (you know, not the blowing out candles kind, but the pretending to be the crocodile hunter or fake interview kind!) and we were all laughing so hard at the antics. That will be a very precious memory. My uncle has ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease), and this will be one of the last special times together with him, as his condition gets progressively worse.Second: Detox. So come to find out, God had some stuff that He wished to clear up between us, and getting me away proved an excellent outlet for surfacing some of these issues. Without actually going into full details, lets just say that there was some major sin/disobedience issues that I had been pushing to the back burner for a long time now, and God was finally like: "uhm, no, Jo, this is ridiculous, we are going to deal with this now! once and for all!" (incidentally, I have some really great best friends who have called me on this, and I finally decided to start listening to what God was saying through them). So, yeah, working on cleaning out some pretty nasty toxic sin from my life and getting clean. And I actually went for 5 days straight without a Mtn Dew. I'm not really sure how! I slept a lot more, and was largely less productive during waking hours, and the effects of my detox at this level became obvious when craving started to set in. However, when, upon returning last evening, I pulled a dusty can out of my pantry and greedily gulped it down, I would have to say that it was not as refreshing as I had formerly remembered. Perhaps I am over the hump and on the way to rehabilitation?
Third: Deprivation. Not sure what all forms this is going to take, but for starters I think that God taught me a lot through His creation in the last several days. Of course any of you that have been to Colorado know that the elevation severely effects normal body functions. Not the least of which is breathing. Decrease in oxygenation of the air at higher altitudes, causes the muscles of the diaphragm and lung alveoli to have to contract more vehemently to be able to inhale an adequate amount of O2 for adequate tissue oxygen perfusion. Funny thing though, when you have allergies like crazy, coupled with asthma, tripled with general lack of perfect fitness, and quadrupled with this oxygen deprivation... well, you get me wheezing like a freight train while trying to climb any sort of slope, and having heart palpitations! (which is slightly distressing if you have never experienced that before!) But there is a certain victory in attaining a crest, climbing just beyond what you think you can possibly do... I don't know if I can explain it. Somehow its ten times as meaningful for the very fact that it cost you something. (namely physical pain) Also, we hiked through railroad tunnels cut straight out of the mountain rocks. Some of the tunnels were quite long and you couldn't see the end from the beginning. But I noticed that if you went until you just couldn't see at all to go any farther... at the exact point where you were completely devoid of any light to see what in the world you were stepping on or over on the ground... it was at the point of absolutely no way to go on... that you could see the first sliver of light from the other end. Somehow this was the most comforting truth. That even when God brings us through times in our lives when it is so pitch black that we think we can't go on one step more. He shows us that sliver of light from the other side... plus He is there the entire time, holding our hand and coaxing us forward one step at a time. The deprivation of light makes us have to trust that He knows that there is another end and that He will not let us trip and fall in the dark.
Fourth: Struggle. I find it very interesting that one of the things that renews me the most is a good long struggle. Okay, funny story time... so I was hiking and me and Jeff (my stellarly amazingly rugged type of brother, think flannel shirts, work boots, dirty dusty ball cap, and heart of gold!) decided that we were not content hiking the trail, but needed to descend to the valley floor and dip our hands in the cold mountain stream... which was of course the first mistake. Getting down the mountain is generally the easier of the directions of travel, and I strongly recommend the "squat and slide" method when all else fails. I however, in my infinite wisdom, decided to stand at one point to climb over some brush... slipped, fell... and landed square on a cactus. Oh, I am really not joking! And it wasn't one of those cactus that are poky to sit on, but produce no lasting effects. No, this was porcupine-quality-millions-of-tiny-needles-embedded-in-flesh type cactus. I froze my hand in the mountain stream long enough to pull out all of the on
es impaled there... but my poor gluteous maximus had to wait until I had hiked all the way back to the house. And we decided to climb up one of the landslide piles to get back up the mountain to the trail... again, not one of my proudly bright moments... I was still a good 12 feet from the top, wheezing like a teakettle, with cramps in all four of my extremities, and wanting nothing more than to just let go of my handhold and fall all the way back down to the valley floor. But I made it... even though I really wanted to cry when I finally made it to the top, and I just laid there for a while. I would have to say that extreme sports like mountain climbing are not going to be one of my spiritual gifts! I'm pretty sure that the only thing that kept me going up that mountainside was pure heart... (that and the fact that one of my lovely siblings who shall remain nameless, but his initials are JIM! decided to shower me with pine cones while I was climbing. I always preform a little better when it becomes a pride issue) One of my profiles has this verse posted to it, and I keep meaning to change it, but then every time I start to, I realize how much I really need this verse in my life for those times of struggle: 2 Cor 4:16 "Therefore we do not lose ♥ . Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For out light and momentary afflictions are producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
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