Blank Stares.

I have just spent almost an hour sitting on my bed zoned out looking at various pictures and profiles on facebook. Looking up videos and songs on Youtube and I just came back into reality not knowing really what I've been thinking about for the last hour.

So these times happen not very often but I suddenly felt a tad home sick. Not just for the east coast but for literally the days of summer vacation when I did absolutely nothing but lay in the grass or sleep in no problem. What is my problem? I have been having this chronic fear of not being rested enough. Of not being able to have enough strength, of being sick, of being sick and tired. Then I look to the tan carpet with old car maintenance receipts and a birthday card. I have a job, it is on the West coast and this is what I've been doing for a year. I am...tired. But I am... more full than I have been.

I spent the day decompressing from work...The morning decompressing. You would wonder what is there to decompress from when you work with kids all the time, in the woods, in a bubble?

It is just that. At times I feel as though I am not a real person. I feel as though I am stuck in this role of North Eastern PA. Where my days consist of making sure announcements are running smoothly classes are set and prepped ready for when kids get off their beds and sing my way up and down trails while getting to know the brains and fears of 5th and 6th graders. By the time I get into bed at night I feel like I had only just gotten out 10 minutes before. Feeling the same amount of exhaustion.

I am not trying to say this is a negative thing. Because it isn't most of the time. I am saying that I don't want to fall into this routine of this being the only thing I know...

I feel this is why my ambition has sky rocketed for what my ideas might be for further down the road. There are so many options. Where can I go, what do I really want to do next? How? Through hike the Appalachian Trail? Perhaps, Bike across the country? High potential. What do I truly want to be when I go up?

That last question has me back to square one, wishing I was a child laying in the grass with no responsibility to worry about, with nothing to worry about sustaining myself with.

LIGHT BULB.

Why do these things gnaw away at my brain so much sometimes? As much as I am not looking forward to doing low-ropes tomorrow I will openly admit that I do enjoy the personalities I meet more. I don't right before I dive in, but once I'm in I take advantage of it and I enjoy getting to know kids and what makes them tick.

Truth: I have a very selfish mentality at times when it comes to working in this industry. When I think about the day, I think about how I would much rather be sitting here on my bed not doing a single thing. Sleeping instead, perhaps or literally staring at a wall.

I have been admitting more and more to myself that though I say I trust the Lord to give me all the strength I need to sustain me, I am exhausted. Looking toward faces I have yet to meet and places I have yet to see, tonight, I am tired and I want to sleep. Deep slumbers, with out roosters.

I have also realized that I tend to try and candy coat endings to my entries... but not tonight.

That's all I've got.

Everything

"We stood
Steady as the stars in the woods
So happy-hearted
And the warmth rang true inside these bones
As the old pine fell we sang
Just to bless the morning."

Ben Howard is perfect rainy day music. Not depressing but restfully inspiring. While enjoying a good blanket, while sitting inside looking out as rain falls feeling inspired to love every little thing like, "Hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags", or a good pen to paper... Thank you Jennifer Spears for allowing the Lords love to shine through you. And thanks be to God for the Love that inspires so many to translate your  love and beauty in so many unique ways.

There are thoughts I have about the ever changing seasons. Questions, but who doesn't? My continued question is, "Will it ever be anything as I imagined it to be"? As of right now, to emphasize again, this is nothing as I imagined my life being two years ago. Three thousand miles from anything that was familiar. Now it is becoming so.

Pennsylvania is hard to fathom at times in regards to thinking I might have stayed... And what if I did? What if I pushed the Lords words to the side, like I have so many times? Then where would I be? Just as sheltered, perhaps, instead of being OK with uncomfortable.

I'm sitting alone in this cafe looking at locals while no one knows how far these feet and this soul has truly come. But what am I trying to prove? It's not about me, but, that's what I love.  I'm along for the ride amongst this field trip to experience and help others to experience the love of Christ. The mission of Christ. The ways that the Lord leads each of us through each moment. Down each trail and through each temporary stay. This world is unbelievable at times.

Let the light continue to shine through.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11;
^"4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. ⁶ God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. ⁷ A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. ⁸ To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. ⁹ The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. ¹⁰ He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. ¹¹ It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have."

Frogs that can't swim, chatting with Owls.

How do you change something that you would rather not change but absolutely need to change any way? Something that is just so thrilling and fulfilling?

Like being loud with 5th graders? It is day three of the week and when I'm saying I'm honest it is this... I have a problem. Yes I openly admitted it. I LOVE singing camp songs, making silly voices and doing owl calls...What's it to you?  However my voice... My vocal chords highly, HIGHLY dislike me right now because of it. The energy that is expelled from kids is some of the best energy that can in many cases (not all) fill your cup to the brim and fill your quota for laughter, love and smiles.

There is something about a child's laughter that sets the world right. Something that even though my throat hurts after I have been working for literally 13+ hours straight, it makes me want to sing one more song, to share jokes and make them smile.

Yes... I have done it again. I have stretched it a little too far when it comes to using aspects of this tent beyond the ability that it has to continue with out discomfort... But tonight, I just don't care because these kids are The Bees Knees.

Gods Cue for Rain Amongst These Giants.

It is so funny how on the most random of days when your schedule is thrown off, you can't help but feel slightly out of place and some what like a Sunday afternoon before going back to school Monday morning to partake in the grind of another week... Looking forward to something. Something still something calm, yet moments that make you feel alive and moments that help you to remember so many different combinations of things.

The entire day I have been feeling like it is Sunday. One of those Sundays where you know hard things are on their way but you wish so badly that you had one more day to the weekend to finish all the homework you put off until now, to have those moments around a campfire or on a trail where discovery is at its finest while getting the breathe stolen from your heart as you see creation at its finest.

As we drove back on the wettest winding roads I couldn't help but feel that abrupt end to an adventure. Tired but feeling to lazy to do anything about it. To want nothing more but to sit in the shower and thaw. To feel like you should have perhaps been somewhere else...Where? Not sure. But the conversations felt entirely right.



This season of hard conversations and communication continues. There is so much I am looking forward to that I don't even know  the slightest details of yet. But I know it is there...  Love and Adventure.