Do you ever feel like you are climbing mountain that you have yet to summit?
I do.
Have you ever hiked up a mountain?
I have.
Mountains are challenges. No doubt about it. But the reward that you receive at the top usually involves overlooking some majestic valley! In a word it's breathtaking!
Sometimes mountains are self-inflicted, like debt. Sometimes the Lord puts them in front of us so that we can learn and grow as we climb up closer to Him, on the mountaintop. No matter what the cause for the mountain the effort that it takes to move upward forces our eyes in that direction; Psalm 121:1,2 ~ I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
That's definitely what I've been having to do as I've been coming through the month of March. February is a great month to get paid in! Before I continue let me explain that I only get paid once a month. That's just the way that my employer has it set up, which is nice because I always know exactly what I have to spend and makes for easy budgeting, but not nice in the way that I know that's all I get, but I digress. Basically it's a nice month to get paid in because it's a short month, which psychologically has the capability to make me feel like they have a little more money at the end of the month and that payday is right around the corner. But then comes March, which is 31 days long:( , which makes it feel like FOREVER until the next payday.
Today was payday, and so I made my first of many BIG payments on my CC. It's not a huge dent, but it's a dent none the less. The first of many dents I also might add.
In the spirit of encouragement, for those of you out there facing your own mountains, here is a lovely video put together by Abigail Miller's husband. It's from her song called "The Mountaintop". If you're intersted in owning her music for yourself check out this link, Abigail Miller music. I own 2 of her CD's and it's great music to meditate on! I hope you enjoy the video as well.
P.S. In the interest of full disclosure I actually didn't watch the video until I posted it to my blog, so I had no idea that they used Psalm 121 at the end of the video as well :) I love the way God works.
I am blessed enough to live in one of the most beautiful places imaginable. True, right now even though it's technically spring, it feels more like fall or winter with the 50 degrees and grey covered sky, but truly it is. It's always green (unlike where I grew up in CA), and the terrain around these parts is just amazing. The inconsistent, and mostly gloomy, weather makes the days like what we experienced on Saturday all the more special. Imagine (if you can) a perfect sunny, blue sky, 65 degree day. It's not to hot, your just feeling the heat by being touched by the sun, there's just a touch of a breeze and you are standing on the beach sandwiched in between a view of the Olympic Mountains and Mount Baker. That was the day that me and my friends had on Saturday. It was amazing!
The day started after a very late night of my friends and I celebrating Levi's birthday. We stayed up late to enjoy the fire and fellowship until the gravity of our sleepy eyes pulled us away to our respective beds. Ahhh, there's nothing like the solace of a good pillow and clean sheets. Anyway, Linea and Maggie did a great job at putting the party together, and watching childhood videos of ourselves was fun too. So I know that you think we must have been tired from the previous evening, but in all truth most of us were fine. I woke up around 8 and got ready for the day's activities.
The first order of business was to meet up with my friends at church to distribute invitations to church, at the parade that was going on in town. The street that we were on, Pioneer Way, was lively, with booths and food vendors setting up, and people perusing their options for the afternoon fare or deciding on what new treasure they wanted to buy for themselves. So our task was a pretty one as people are mostly in a good mood at those events and willing to take anything you hand them. So my group was finished pretty early. Afterwards I took the walk back to my car, while talking with Julie on the phone and playing catch-up, looked through the CD's at the sidewalk sale at the Christian bookstore and found a couple of decent CD's (one of them has an arrangement of 'He Leadeth Me' with a violin that is amazing). Anyway, after getting back to my car I headed on over to the Geist's for the BBQ that we were going to have. Brats, beans, and potato salad yum! However, Kali, Nicki, Levi, Daniel and myself got there way early (thankfully they left the door unlocked for us), and sat around talking. Finally, after an hour, our fearless SPG leaders arrived and started to grill the Brats and get the food ready.
All of it was delicious, but it wasn't to long after that when our food started to settle and the previous evenings exploits started to catch up with us so we needed to rally the fatigue from our bodies and at first we decided to have Frisbee throwing contest from the balcony, to see who could get it the farthest, which was OK until I cracked one on Levi's car. The car was OK, but I killed the Frisbee, may it R.I.P. However, at Daniels suggestion we all took off to the beach with some pitching wedges and lobs for a rousing game of beach golf (Dan just wanted an excuse to go to the beach, but what a good time it was). Basically beach golf is just picking a point on the beach to hit your ball to. It's no more than a 3 par or so, but out first attempt at it got us all pretty dirty (my favorite shoes are now no more), but I was more upset at myself because I normally have some foresight into what may go wrong and I didn't see that happening at all. Anyway, after I got rid of my stockings and just decided to walk around barefoot the rest of the afternoon got better, plus we decided to hit the ball away from the water. Whoever finally made that call was a genius;) After the fun of the day I sat on the sand and watched the guys at the waters edge, being the guys, trying to see what kind of clams they could find, and getting all sorts of goop on them. I observed the girls building sand furniture (instead of castles), and watch the melding and camaraderie of our group taking place. With jokes and laughter reverberating in the air the tide started sweeping in shooing away the fun that kept the day afloat. The day definitely finished on a high note, and sandwiched between the Olymics and Mount Baker hangs an amazing day full of beach golf, BBQ's and best friends.
good, 