Keep Coming

(This picture was at the very end of the weekend when I was just about ready to go crazy.  I am sitting with some of the Friesen cousins - Renee, Amy, and Alana as we waited for the last load of people and luggage to leave).

Hey, I'm still breathing...even smiling!

Work weekend came and went, leaving me a little shaky and run off my feet, but with a sense of great delight that so many people were able to come and have a wonderful time.  My biggest struggle was preparing to speak at chapel on Sunday.  For an entire week, I tried and tried to make space and time to work on it and seek direction, but to no avail.  By Saturday night, not only was I totally frustrated but almost out of time.  A couple of thoughts came and Psalm 27 as the base of the message, but that was it.  I had no option but to finally go to bed and pray that the morning would hold revelation or least a peace about standing in front of two hundred people with something to share.

It is amazing what a morning can do for me! A self-proclaimed "Super Morning Person," I function best and have the most energy around 6am, and it was there that God met me again.  Awaking with peace and confidence to go forth, with a message on my heart, the day was bright and exciting.

"Every time I'm here, I realize I should come here more often." This phrase from a friend whom I worked at camp with years again and reunited with on Friday night, was the starting point from which I shared some reflections about Beholding the Beauty of the LORD.  Here at camp, we have the rare chance of being surrounded by Creative Glory daily and the awareness of beauty and the still small voice of the Spirit acutely stir us to the reality of the God speaking and moving in and around us.  It is the Beauty of the LORD, not only in Creation, but in God himself, that draws us, captivates us, awakens us and that which calls so many of us to come again and again to this place, this camp, to a place is set apart and consecrated for the work of the Kingdom.

"Every time I'm here, I realize I should come here more often."

This sentiment of being at camp is only a captivating echo of the longing to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD (Ps. 27:4).  The beauty of the tall, straight, towering pines, the sweet whistling of the gentle dusk breeze, to stand amidst a storm passing over, watching the early morning resting on the stillness of glassy water... all speak of something holy, something transcendent that is so much bigger than we are.

I pray that I may say 

"Every time I'm here,

I realize I should come here

more often"...

and mean it of the place with God.

the house of the LORD.

the Secret Place.

Where I seek His face.

One thing I desire.

To Behold the Beauty of the LORD.

You can tell I am a bit exhausted after the weekend, and you can see an update on the grease level of my hair as I pass the three week mark of not using shampoo...25 days today and going strong.