While my blog pages may lean into stick figure cartoons, I’m actually a big fan of photography, both color and black and white. Photography is a way to capture another love I have: nature and hiking. You’ll probably never want to hike with me, though, because I keep stopping to take pictures.
The photo here is from one of my hikes somewhere in Oregon with my friend Karen Ball. She likes to stop for photos, too, so we get along fine. We often leave our husbands at home on these hikes so they won’t fall asleep under a tree somewhere, grow moss on them, and be lost forever.
But I don’t hafta hike or snap photos to enjoy nature. I’m happy to hang out and just spectate. Something about that simple process nurtures my soul, draws me to God, and keeps me steadily coming back for more.
I have a Masters of Music in Theory and Composition. Go figure.
But here’s what I’ve learned about that: All our life experiences are part of the journey God is using for his purposes. I can’t even begin to say how much the incredible joys, sorrows, and hair-pulling-out trials I went through getting that degree have ended up being exactly what I needed and giving me exactly the skills I needed, to do a task I didn’t even know would be a big part of my life’s work. So yeah, you’ll never convince me that God isn’t a sovereign master designer and orchestrator of epically unfathomable proportions.
I believe you can tell a lot about people by the shoes they own. So I dug through all my footwear to see what I could tell about myself.
I found…
2 pairs of crusty yard-work shoes, also suitable for painting the house…I do manual labor.
2 pairs of worn out running shoes waiting to become crusty garden shoes…Lots of manual labor, and I wear out lots of running shoes.
2 pairs of decent running shoes, one of those being gortex…It’s not that I’m out in the rain a lot, it’s that I hate wet feet.
2 pair of hiking boots, also gortex…See previous point.
1 pair of black heels and 1 pair of black flats…Both of which I feel I must own, yet I vehemently avoid wearing.
2 pairs of black hightop sneakers…These are my Sunday-goin’-to-meetin’ shoes cuz I don’t love wearing neon runners to church. When it’s cold out, I just wear hiking boots to church.
2 pairs of vaguely fashiony black boots…Which I also avoid wearing, but sometimes I gotta look dressier than sneakers, and black leather counts for that in my book.
I also noticed that all my shoes, besides my running shoes, are more than 12 years old…I don’t like to shop. Really, really don’t. It’s a task born of necessity when something totally wears out. (Men, before you start hunting for my phone number, let me assure you that I’m happily married.)
Here’s a question for the ladies:
Would you rather receive a gift of a whole day in a spa, or tickets to a professional football game?
My answer:
Park me on the fifty-yard line, baby. Da Bears!
(Men, I repeat, I’m happily married)
Other miscellaneous facts
1. Yes, that’s me in the photo all bundled up on the coast of Washington looking for cool ocean birds. Most of the time I’d rather look at nature than TV.
2. But at certain times of the year, I do watch TV: Da Bears! The football kind of Bears. Also Seahawks, Lions, Rams…pretty much all of the NFL. I don’t love watching nature programs where preditors dispatch prey. Football teams dispatching each other in sportsmanlike fashion is fine.
3. As a general rule, I’m cheap. I don’t like to spend money. Really. (Men, let’s not cover this again.)
4. I’m a decent guitarist, but I can live without performing in public. In fact, I do live without it. Happily. Don’t call me to play for your gig, ‘cuz I’m not comin’.
5. Three words about my clothes: Must. Have. Cotton.
6. I love to fish and have never fallen in the lake while fishing. (Falling in the lake while not fishing is another story.) My hubby hates to fish, but he’s an excellent cook, so I’m okay with that.
7. Three last words about my clothes: Cotton. Cotton. Cotton.
The
Most
Important
stuff
I believe God is real, and he takes a persistent, active role in the management of the universe. Very active.
As in, he made it, he runs it, and he knows everything that happens in every molecule of every galaxy across the entire span of space and time.
That sort of thing.
He is a very BIG God. And he is good.
I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of my soul, and the Lord of my life.
The Son of God, as in, not some beefed-up angel, not simply a great moral teacher, but really, truly God incarnate. Our relational God reaching out to humanity to repair the rift of sin, the lie of self-sufficiency and self-exaltaion we humans have been clinging to ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.
Let’s not pretend we wouldn’t have done the same in a hot minute. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Only Jesus could truly pay the price. And he did.
I am his.