"All Forward!"

Mt. Hood 

It has been almost a year since I wrote my last blog post, a year filled with new adventures, new friends, new places.  New acts of God.  There is so much I could say about this past year, from the times of tears to the times of belly-laughter.  It was a year of adventures on the daily, a year of doing life with people as a primary focus/business.  I spent a couple weeks on crutches, nearly summited Mt. Hood then sledded down it on a camping pad, snow-camped, went natural hot-spring hunting, continued working as a CNA, learned how to skate-board and tango, lived in my favorite dorm with over 100 new and wonderful freshmen, got to work alongside 12 amazing RAs, became addicted to making ceramics, and learned how to water ski.  I discovered ovens can dry puff-paint on graduation caps in 30 minutes, that cheese cakes are easier to make than I thought, and that kitchens truly have a great way of pulling communities together.  In some ways, though, this past year was one of God re-making me and reminding me who I am in Him.  I went through almost the entire year with no concrete idea as to where God was going to lead me after I graduated, and I was blessed by a new and beautiful community reminding me that God is good now and will continue to be good in the future. 

He has led me to intern with Youth Dynamics Adventures this summer.  We have done a week of training now, learning more about what this kind of adventure ministry looks like and what our role will be in it.  On day 2 we shared our testimonies with one another-- a powerful reminder of how God has worked in each of us to lead us to this place.  He is in the business of redemption.  It reminds me of the following, a quotation from Bob Goff's book "Love Does":

"And when each of us looks back at all the turns and folds God has allowed in our lives, I don't think it looks like a series of folded-over mistakes and do-overs that have shaped our lives.  Instead, I think we'll conclude in the end that maybe we're all a little like human origami and the more creases we have, the better." 

This past weekend, the other new interns and I completed our first whitewater river guide training.  We had to learn the strokes, the commands, the river-reading.  How to enter and navigate a rapids, how not to get stuck on a rock, what to do when we do get stuck on a rock, how not to lose our paddlers, how to get our paddlers back in our boat when we do lose them, etc.  One of the commands is, "All forward!" meaning, everyone paddle forward together--pretty "straightforward", if you know what I mean ;).  Usually this command is issued because you are either hitting a bunch of waves or are bored in slow-moving water and are ready to move a little faster.  In the case of my life, God has called an "all forward" for this summer and my plans following it.  I know He is directing me good places and I trust Him as my guide.  The pace will be fast, the current will be strong, the water will hit me in the face, but my Guide is good, and He actually created the waves.  Even if I can't really understand what He is doing, why those jagged rocks seem like they are headed straight for us, I trust that He knows exactly how to navigate them.