Woke up in Narnia (Part 4)

My time in Wyoming was extremely impactful on my heart and soul. It's amazing how we can feel so much more disconnected from everyday life and contact when we step away from simple technology and clutter of business. And it is even more incredible to witness and partake in the feeling of connection between God and His creation. Seeing views and spending quality time being told the truths that The Lord has for us in who He is bringing us up to be.

During our time in the Teton Wilderness we stepped into a place that we liked to call "Austria". We wrestled with trails, snow and mud. We wondered when we would actually make it to Cub creek  or if we were actually in the right area that we had anticipated being on the map. The arguments were that there was a trail and that we should follow it but that there was also a clearing and we should just cut right to it.

Creation spit us out into what we called Austria:

We stayed here for 2 days and encountered our first snow. We had made a group decision to stay an extra day to sit on the topics that we were discussing pertaining to servant leadership as well as revisiting the topics of Pride and Unbelief. We actually touched upon map school too, go figure. 

It was one of the many incredible times that the 7 of us spent crammed into a tent while the wind howled outside as we intimately poured our hearts out with opinions and vulnerability. 

These sights overwhelmed out hearts. In the same way God overwhelmed my soul in taking this month in Wyoming to speak loudly and boldly into my life. With the lack of distraction and chaos, I was able to fully focus upon Him. Something that I have struggled with tremendously for the last couple of years while living and working in the same community. There was no boarder line and because of that I had not fully stepped away to focus on the most important relationship I will ever have for eternity. There was a lot of conviction and swelling behind the reality of this that blacked out some major heart issues I didn't even realize I was drowning in. 

 Back in Vedauwoo where "The storm threw our hearts into humility, God gave me a dream that played out with dates and peace. Though I didn't know what the dream meant I was full of praises that God would show me something like this. A possible direction and further calling upon my life. "But the plans of The Lord stand firm forever, The purposes of His heart through all generations". -Psalm 33:11

Commit to The Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans". Proverbs 16:3

Our time in the Teton wilderness was cultivating. During our "Solo time" (we stayed next to one another in tents because of our continued depth in category 1 grizzly country required us to be in groups no smaller than 3), The Lord began to pull my heart strings and unpack more of what I have been doing the last few years. He and I talked about how I was wondering if I just didn't love what I was supposed to be doing with the rest of my life. I told Him how there was simply no passion or enthusiastic drive behind the role I was currently in. After 2 years of God saying no. That I must stay where I was until He called me elsewhere. I didn't know where I was supposed to be headed but I knew deeply that the final destination was not California.

The next morning we woke up to "Narnia":

When I arrived in Wyoming a month earlier, I had fallen in love with Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries. The vision, the people, the area. Through out my course I had realized that it was not just a peak effect of what I was experiencing that would eventually fade after I returned to the redwoods. Rather it was a dim light that was given oxygen and fuel to burn brighter and more abundantly with passion and drive that helped to make it clear that this is a direction that I need to go. Not just A direction but THIS direction. 

This time I could visually see God waving His hands and pointing to Laramie. This time He was saying, "Here! I need you to go this way". 

Upon my return to California I had my meeting with my boss and the meeting played out exactly like my dream. Either way I knew my time was wrapping up in California and I knew that Laramie was where I was headed. I spent 2 full days filling out a full time employment application for the position of Admissions and Customer Support Manager. Why did I apply for this specific job? Because it is a vital role that has been in need of filling to help provide perspective students and their families communicate with our team so that we can orient them and prepare them the best ways that we know so that they can reach their goals of getting on to their course. It is a role that as I look back upon the last 4 years of working in California between the laughs, the struggles, the raw and the joy, God has been preparing me greatly for this specific position to use the tools that He has sharpened and equipped me with to serve Him and help to build His kingdom through Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries (SROM)!

After a month of interviews and a bike tour down the coast of California, I got the call and acceptance letter that I got the job! God is so, SO good! So now the transition continues and you will be seeing these updates as they come! First things first and that is I can't move any further until I finish reading an awesome book called "The God Ask" 

I could not be more ecstatic and also at peace with Gods plan! "Lord let your desires be my desires"

Bless The Lord OH my soul!!

Plenty more to come, but until then...

-Keep adventuring

#RealTalk

So here's a question for you. Have you ever been told that you're crazy? That you are absurd for for doing something or living the way that you do? I follow "Humans of New York" and found this one interview very spot on and you should check it out for a hot second here.

Why do you do the things that you do? What is a reasoning and the fire behind what you seek, pursue, long for and thrive towards?

I have been asked on many occasions if I'm still trying to ride my bike places. Or wondering when I'm going to actually get a "real" job. Why can't I just pick something and just do it for the rest of my life? That's a very simple question. The answer doesn't need to be complex. The answer is: I am a lover of people. That is my full time occupation. Cliche`?

Let me explain the simplicity. The only thing that should matter is loving well. And I am not an expert by any means. When you love, you serve. When you serve you give. When you give unconditionally, you gain. You gain joy. And joy is a blessing, it is everlasting. Most importantly joy is like water. it will always soak whoever is in the splash zone.

I have this friend who I lived with in an apartment. I had an experience that changed my life and this experience made me so happy! And now that I was finished with that season of my life, I was sad and couldn't figure out how to hold onto that happiness. I laid on the floor of her room crying wondering what was wrong with me. These next words that she spoke are etched through out my entire life story and a huge component with in the process that began my discovery of the saving grace of Jesus.

"You need joy. See Happiness is temporary, we experience things that make us happy but over time those things fade. Joy is everlasting. It does not fade. Even when something ends, Joy still lingers continually".


My juvenile self couldn't understand or comprehend at that moment what had just been revealed to me. But because of that it caused me to seek more deeply to discover the difference and understand the meanings.

Because of these ripple effects, I have realized that I want love to be my full time job... Call me a hippie, but it's true! I want to help people to: walk alongside them, share their burdens, hear their celebrations and dance beside them. I want to sit and dwell with them as they ponder the season and seek through the fog as people try to figure out who they are and for what reasons. I want to hug people cry with people and be blown away by who God is with people. The list of this occupation goes on and on and on. Because all of these things bring joy everlasting.

It is not a scale of how much we've done but what those things have done for and in each other.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? I want to love you as much as God loves you and me.

Keep Adventuring.