See Something More

I am incredibly thankful and enormously blessed to be a part of a what some people call a "small group" or a "life group" or a "community group". Some might even call it a "Bible study group". In reality, all we are is bunch of young twenties who want to live life together, know Jesus better, and share him with the people around us.  So we spend hours together - sometimes it's just a few of us around a coffee table, and sometimes it is twenty or more of us enjoying a potluck meal together. Sometimes it looks like playing games around  a campfire until late into the night, and sometimes it looks like singing Christmas carols at a retirement home. We can be silly together, but we can also get on our knees together. We talk about light hearted life, and we talk about the deepest things on our hearts. That's the beauty of the body of Christ, and I feel like I have tasted its sweetness through this group of brothers and sisters.  We also meet

Sometimes I am standing on the shore in front of the Red Sea.  Have you ever thought about what it would have been like to actually be there, standing on the shore of the Red Sea when the Lord began to stir the waters and draw them back on both sides?  I wonder what the Israelites felt. What was going through their minds? On one hand, they probably stood in absolute, mouth-hanging-open awe and wonder. On the other hand, they were likely more terrified than ever before in their entire lives. Maybe they couldn't keep their eyes off the phenomenon before them, but at the same time maybe they wanted to hide their eyes in fear. Their feet were probably jumping to step onto that soft sea bottom, yet their feet were also shaking in their sandals, unable to move from fright. Were they looking out over the miraculous pathway, ready to step forward...or were they looking over their shoulders back at Egypt, tempted to just turn around and go back right then and there?  They had to be thinking

We had been walking along a narrow trail in the woods for a while now, surrounded on both sides by trees and brush. I like the comfort of the woods, maybe because I feel like I am snuggled up and tucked away somewhere wild and safe.  But I sensed we were getting closer when the foliage started to thin a little to the right, and we began to catch glimpses of the valley below. I knew that we had arrived when the trees stopped in their tracks, as if they were afraid to step out on the large rock jutting out before us. I stepped out onto the rock, no longer surrounded by the protection of the forrest, into a wide open space with only thin, cool, whispy air. I walked to the very tip, wondering if my weight could possible shift the ledge, yet trusting that nothing could possibly move this massive, ancient rock that reaches out over the Ozark Mountains.  In that moment of exposure, I looked out over the vast valley below me - which had been covered up from my sight by the trees only a few mom

The alarm clock goes off. 5:30 am. I check the thermometer. 30 degrees even. It's a perfect day to climb Pinnacle Mountain. I slip on my warmest clothes and wake up my sleepiest friends, and we all jump in the car. We meet some more friends at the base of the mountain, and we begin our climb to the top by headlamp, our breath forming little puffs of cloud in the freezing air. We laugh and joke all the way to the top, partly because its too early to be awake and partly because normal people don't climb Pinnacle when its this dark and cold. We get to the top just in time to see the horizon turning a rich, firey orange - the kind that only God can paint. We get the water boiling just in time to sip hot chocolate as we watch the sun rise over Little Rock, glowing on the Arkansas River, illuminating the fall colors on the trees, and lifting the fog from the valleys. And I am reminded again that I just do not watch the sunrise often enough. There is something magical and myst