Walk Easy

Waiting. Not my favorite word. I prefer words like go, move forward, and take it and run. Such words bring the fresh wind of adventure with them and make me feel excited. But waiting...waiting makes me feel stuck. I've been intensely struggling with waiting for a while now - spinning my wheels until the ruts are deeper than my tires, chomping at the bit until my mouth bleeds - getting frustrated with myself and with God because I couldn't make sense of it all.

Enter Cinnamon -  a little, sorrel Quarter Horse mare that I started riding when I sub as a wrangler on the occasional weekend. What started as a working relationship grew into a hobby and I currently ride her at least once a week. Cinnamon is very smart, sensitive and talented. She is also extremely energetic and likes to run - all the time. One day we were out riding in the pasture and I started getting frustrated because I could not get her to walk. She was interpreting my every cue as a signal to move forward. However, that's not what I wanted. I wanted her to slow down, soften up and listen to me. Not that I have anything against running - I too love to run. However, I wanted her to quiet herself and understand what I was asking so that we could not just run but also harness that energy and dance. Every time she tried to rush ahead of me, I would pull her back and breathe, "waaaalllk... easy girl, just walk." And so we walked...and walked... and walked.

And as we walked, God placed His finger on my heart and told me that Cinnamon and I had a lot in common. I too needed to learn to discern the subtlety of different cues so that we could dance. In my rushing I was not only wasting energy that was better spent elsewhere but also passing up the opportunity to learn something greater. In order to attain that, I had to wait - listen and walk easy.

1 Peter 3:4 states that a gentle and quiet spirit is precious to God. I think that His response to our willing waiting is probably along the lines of the pleasure I felt today when, after several weeks of walking, Cinnamon and I started to dance a little. I felt her settle down and listen - she steadied her pace and bent under light pressure from my leg as she played with the bit in her mouth waiting for her next cue from my hands. I thought, "Yes, here we go!" Now, we can start to do great things.

When you can't "click here"

There are some times in life when you just can't Google the answer. Where an internet search will do you no good. In our fast paced, hyperlinked culture that brings a sense of helplessness. Our "crystal ball" has gone dark. What we most want to know is no longer at our finger tips. It brings us to the remembrance of how little we really know.
We are not the omniscient beings we like to consider ourselves. In times like these we remember how little control we really have. It brings us to our knees - where we should have been all along - in front of the only Omniscient, all powerful, all sufficient One who loves us more than we can imagine and who has us engraved on His hand. Here we wait and hope, pray and praise expecting the results that only He can bring - a God sized answer for our God sized question.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  - Romans 5:3-5 ESV

And then, when we have realized that no one other than God can fulfill our hope, there is none other who can receive glory when the answer comes.  So we wait for the victory that is coming.

Story Bricks

It's been over two years since I've blogged. I never really decided to stop, it just sort of faded into the background during two whirlwind years - an internship and then moving to Texas for my first "real" job. (I'd argue that the internship was pretty real, though!) I've thought about starting back several times, but each time have backed off because I couldn't decide where to start. I was intimidated by the thought of having to write a definitive post about the last two years.

Then, I saw this talk about using social media to tell your story in "bricks" - pieces that make up the larger whole. You don't have to share the entire gospel in one tweet. Instead, you build the bigger story one brick at a time. So, I'm not going to narrate all of what God has done in the last two years on one post. However, I'm going to share some bits and pieces because what He is doing is worth sharing.

I see these bits and pieces as cairns - markers that indicate a significant juncture. They're here as a memorial and possibly to help someone else who finds themselves on the same trail. And, maybe, after a while I'll be able to look back and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture - the eternal story that is being woven by the greatest Author of all time.

So, here's my commitment - one post a week from now until the end of the year. No word count, no theme requirement - just something worth sharing. Then, at the end of the year, I'll reevaluate and decide where to go from there. Here we go... journey on!

Snow Boots and Plane Tickets

I just bought a pair of snow boots and am now shopping for plane tickets, because, apparently one needs snow boots to winter in New Mexico and I want to fly home to visit family and friends before I settle in here for a year. Yes, I am going to stay in New Mexico for a year.

It still has to sink in at times, but I am excited about this unexpected bend in the trail. I've accepted an internship at the conference center I have been working at since May. For 9 months, I'll be the Administrative/General Intern and will have a crash course in finances, budget and all things business and operations. I'm excited to have the opportunity to learn about those things in a practical way. I think the skills I learn will prove very valuable and transferable in many realms of life. Then, next summer, I'll become Rec Staff again and spend the summer as lead wrangler.

I say it's an unexpected bend in the trail because this is not where I saw myself after graduation, up to about 2 months ago. However, that seems to be a common theme in my life lately. I'm glad that God is writing this story and not me because He is making it much more interesting than I ever could. I'm convinced that He has called me here for the next year and am excited to see what it holds. There will be at least 4 other interns about my age and I will get to see more than 6" of snow for the first time ever. These, among other elements, promise an interesting year.

Told you so...

Well, I wrote at the beginning of this adventure that I am a slacker blogger and it's proving true. I could blame it on a number of things, including that this week has been a huge adjustment curve for me, but it mostly comes down to the fact that I tend to forget to write about stuff.

Anyhow, I have the afternoon off and am chilling at one of the wifi spots on campus enjoying my "Celtic Woman" Pandora station and catching up on my web browsing. I spent the morning on the high ropes course with the rec staff learning rope rescues and the belaying the boy's and girl's camp staff. I really enjoy working the ropes course. It's a lot of fun and a good change of pace. I even got in a ride on the zipline with my roommate (who camps has stolen for the next three weeks). Flying through the air upside down is good for the soul.

Things are going well out at the barn. We served 74 riders this last week, including youth camp track times. It's a much tighter schedule that I was anticipating, but we're working through the kinks and I expect things to go more smoothly next week. This past week, our mornings were slow and we spent a lot of time working on rec staff projects and getting things ready for various activities. Then, it was an early lunch and full steam ahead in the afternoon with two one hour track times and then two one hour trail rides before a late dinner. In the coming three weeks we will be adding camp lessons in the mornings and possibly a few morning trail rides.

My job is never boring! Crazy busy and sort of stressful at times, but I'll take that over boring any day. Besides...how many places can you be both a wrangler and a high ropes facilitator? I'm having fun and looking forward to what the next weeks hold.

Quick Update

Whew...today is the last day of staff training and I feel like I've been running like crazy for the past 2-3 weeks. Tomorrow will be my first full day off in over 2 weeks and I am looking forward to the rest. However, I have been enjoying the work and particularly getting to know the rest of the summer staff who arrived last week. Overall, it's been a good kind of running.

Besides training, which has taken up the majority of my time, I've been working on developing the horseback riding program for camps and the youth camps. Today I finally submitted some paperwork that I've been working on for about 3 weeks. That felt so good. Now it's on someone else's plate for a while.

We have a cook out tonight and I'm looking forward to enjoying that and my day off without worrying about all the office work I have to do...because it's mostly done!

Time flies...

Shwew...it's been a busy past couple of days... Let's see...
Friday we took an all day ride up to Baldy - the highest peak in the area at about 10,000 feet. We probably spent about 6 hours in the saddle and several more clearing trails. And we had a little time to enjoy the spectacular views. I'm putting pics up on Facebook.

Saturday I slept in a bit, stopped in at the graduation party for our campus director's daughter, went to lunch, raced out of the lunch line to answer a call about a horse who was down (false alarm), ate my lunch, did laundry and played speed with Micki (one of our co-coordinators), cleaned my room, and did a little planning for the week ahead.

Sunday I went to church with Holly and Andrew. They're church threw the coolest baptism celebration I've ever seen. They did the baptism in a neighborhood pool (and it was a little chilly outside!), then had their service outside followed by a catered meal and live music. The pastor says that a public profession of faith through baptism is the biggest decision of a person's life, so they should throw the biggest party too.

Today, I went out to feed and get Jason started on some jobs then spent the rest of the day in the office. I worked on finishing up the horseback Standard Operating Procedure (which I've written about 1/3 of), planning out the next week and developing a training schedule for the people who will be working at the barn. It was a full day of paperwork!

We've had a few new staffers arrive during the last few days too. It's been fun to have some new faces!