prance with vigor.

If any St. Louis natives are reading this, hopefully you already know where that title comes from. If not, it's the motto of Kaldi's coffee- my very favorite coffee shop that originated in St. Louis. It was the first title that came to mind when I thought about this post, which will be short in the interest of time but totally just hit me.

So I have a bunch of friends who are totally on the adventure of a lifetime. Working on a glacier in New Zealand. Riding a motorcycle from Ecuador to Peru. Teaching in Israel. Crazy awesome things like that. It gives me wanderlust. I think about what they're doing and it totally makes me want to pack my bags and jump on a plane back to Africa or to South America or somewhere and have a great big adventure, meeting the local people, experiencing their culture and sharing Jesus. I think about my friends doing these awesome things and how inadequate I feel. They are living life on the edge, breaking out of their comfort zones, and experiencing God's heart for the nations. Then it hit me. I live in paradise. I work at one of the most unbelievable places I have ever been. I get to minister undercover to some crazy interesting people who have literally searched the whole world to find something that is always with them, Christ. I live in the middle of a national forest. I walk to work everyday. I get to ride horses with my coworkers on a regular basis. I have the greatest extended family anyone could ever know and I get the privilege of living in community- intense, fishbowl, pressure-cooker community- with them every single day. I get to know this extended family through their best and worst times, and they get to know me in mine. I get to worship, work, and weekend alongside these people. Right now we're in the midst of orientation for all the new staff but we've all been doing it together and the topic that keeps coming up and striking me is the concept of "buying in". To be here and do life here well, you've got to buy in. You HAVE to believe in this place, in the mission, in the community, and in what we do and why it's worth giving up most of your creature comforts and conveniences. And ya know what? I do. I buy in. It's why I came back. It's why I committed for at least a full year here, if not more. It's why I can be given some crazy news and overwhelming options and still believe that no matter what I really do in the place, I'm serving the Lord and hopefully planting, watering or cultivating the seeds of Christ in the guests that come through here. Like I think I've mentioned before, trust has been a big topic the Lord is teaching me lately. Trusting in Him, in His character, in His will, and in His plan to reveal it to me. I came across this verse the other day, "But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. May Your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in You." -Ps. 33:18-22. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Lord has been teaching me to trust Him in huge ways. I can't really say too much about it but some circumstances changed for me today and I have some decisions to make- I don't ever take decisions lightly but I can't and won't take this one lightly. I am learning to practically live out the trust in the Lord. I could use your prayers for wisdom and how to ask informed questions to make educated decisions.

In the mean time, I'm going to "prance with vigor." I am living the dream, literally, and while I may not be hiking glaciers or motorcycling or walking on the roads where Jesus walked, I get to live out Is. 52:7, " How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"

humbled by His goodness.

ok, I don't even know how to start this post because there is SO, SO, SO much I want to say. First off, I want to adore my Creator and Father and King. He is unbelievably good and good to me and I am so undeserving. Ok, big things the Lord has been doing in me lately: 1) Calming so many of my fears. I'm a worrier. Always have been, probably always will be to some degree though I do believe I've gotten much better. I'm also insecure- let's face it, everyone is. So with so many of the people I've been really close to at the ranch leaving at the end of last fall, I was terrified about returning and feeling like I had no friends. And while of course it will take time to feel like I have a handful of really close friends here again, the spring staff is INCREDIBLE. I mean, oh. my. goodness. God couldn't have hand-picked a better staff for this spring than He has. It is blowing my mind how excited I am to be here at the ranch for this very season. I'm in awe of the people He brought here for spring and a lot of them for summer too, which only gets me MORE excited about the potential for awesomeness and Kingdom work this summer and leadership for our busiest season. Spring cleaning these past couple days has been a PLEASURE because of the people I get to work alongside each day. Look at how many words I've just capitalized to see how excited I am. I haven't been sleeping at night despite being bone-tired because I start to think about how blessed and thankful I am and my mind starts going a million miles a minute and I stay awake into the wee hours of the morning. It's a little ridiculous :) Staff meals have been a party, group events are just buzzing. I will always miss "the originals" that I knew here and first welcomed me and made me love this place but I can see how it was time for them to move on and I believe just about each one of them is right in the middle of God's will. And at times it definitely feels like people are missing- not that they've been replaced, just more people have come and those originals are supposed to be back. But the new staff members for spring have breathed so much LIFE into this place in just the few days I've been back. It's refreshed me and I know it's refreshed and excited other returning staff members. It's a beautiful thing. 2) The Lord has made me CONTENT. Yes, I just capitalized, bolded, and italicized that word. I have struggled with contentment in almost every season of my life. It's been one of my biggest burdens for years and I've hated that I've felt so much discontent. So what changed? I've been learning to TRUST the Lord in a radical way, and in a way so much deeper than I've ever experienced before. I have absolutely no doubts that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. For as many doubts as I had about being here in the spring for all of fall and the break, returning was like slamming through a brick wall- the wall of doubt and right into the land of contentment. And the contentment I have allows me to trust the Lord even more. 3) Lately I feel like the Lord has been showing me a lot of how I've been growing, particularly since college. I think part of that is having so much time to reflect but it's been a huge year and half for me and my faithful Father has shown Himself to me SO much and is now causing me to realize some of the depth of the lessons I've learned. One? Vulnerability in community. I was straight-up challenged to be vulnerable in my community at Frontier and most of the time I ran from it because I didn't feel accepted 90% of the time. The times I was vulnerable because I wanted to be was rare- I often felt like I did it because of the accountability and challenge of my mentor and the camp director. So much of that was my own insecurity. However, despite not being very good at it, my time at Frontier was completely invaluable for me to really learn vulnerability and the freedom that can come with it. This fall at the ranch really stretched me to be vulnerable- there were times I felt the Lord pressing down on my like a weight to share something, even though I was terrified. He used the vulnerability and incredible life-stories and realness about struggles from others to break down my barriers and walls. In the few days I've been back here for spring, I've already shared with one of the new girls on my crew some of my deep passions and joys and even insecurities. I have incredible freedom in the Lord, every believer does. And He is allowing me to experience it and life to the fullest. I know forgiveness and redemption for past mistakes and struggles. I am able to be compassionate about struggles I haven't experienced. I want to seek people out and build relationships and do the messy, hard WORK to know others and be intimately known. I fall asleep with a smile and I wake up with a smile because of how much the Lord is at work in me and how passionately I want to pour that out onto others. 4) The Lord has been revealing Himself in so many ways- being back in unbelievable creation with snow and mountains and breaktaking stars that I can see while I lay in my bed at night (I know, I'm SO spoiled to live here), beautiful people and faces and smiles and hearts for the Lord, the rich history of this place and the way it's been ministering to people for half a century, but He has been the most clear in His WORD and dwelling on my relationship with Him. I have a yearlong Bible- it's broken down for OT, NT, psalms and proverbs to read each day and this is the 2nd year I've been going through it. I'm for sure not very consistent and while I have read the Bible in its entirety, reading it in a year brings it together so much clearer because it's a shorter period of time and it forces me to read more. Lately, every daily passage has pounded truth into me and I've been able to dwell on it throughout the day. Also, I started reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. Absolutely fabulous. It's rocking my world, seriously. A huge concept from the chapter I'm currently on: Faith + hope= trust. Dwell on that. "Faith arises from the personal experience of Jesus as Lord. Hope is the reliance on the promise of Jesus, accompanied by the expectation of fulfillment. Trust is the winsome wedding of faith and hope." And there's so much more about how our trust in the Lord lets us know more of His character and ourselves and how we have both a loving, intimate, relational Father in God but He is also the King of all creation and as Pastor Matt Heard from Woodman Valley Chapel has said, "it's a posture of a bow and a hug at the same time." "Disregard of God's immanence deprives us of any sense of intimate belonging, while inattention to His transcendence robs God of His holiness." -Manning. Basically, I'm getting a spiritual workout right now and it feels so good. Alright, there is SOOOO much more I could and want to share right now, but I haven't been getting much sleep and it's already after midnight with a couple of busy days ahead of me. Your Kingdom come, Lord. Thank you for loving me and not leaving me the way I was.