Where I find God.1.

This is where I find God. When I mean 'find God', His presence

is made more aware to me. I was cruising with Billy through the

CocaHala (sp?) on my way to Salmon Arm and there was so

much snow through there! We kind of were eased into this

beautiful Wonderland. It was so peaceful & beautiful everywhere.

Every time I am home (well everytime, but more specifically)

during the winter time, I love looking upon our valley.

It's seriously Wonderland. It's heaven!

...

Every other blog I will write about where I find God.

This is one: I find God in winter wonderland where mountains

are. My soul screams out "yes" to this. This is the 'mountian-

top'. The life we all imagine life to be... Most of the time we

think life to be only on this place, the mountain-top, the good

peaceful life. We think we can jump from one mountain-top

experience to another mountain-top, but in all reality... we

can't! We forget the valley we have to go down into, the lakes

to go around, rivers to go through, the hard pressing trail we

have got to climb, animals to encounter. Most of the time spent

is down in the valley!

As we are in the valley, some parts of the valley, the sun's

light creeps past the shadow of the mountain, and there

are some parts of the valley that are within the shadow of

the mountain.

...

As I write about this I am remembering the hikes that we went

on in Outdoor Rec 11, Quest, during Lifeteams and hikes in

Nemiah. Oh how i LOVED resting on the mountain-top and

looking at what I had accomplished and scream "I did that!

Through all of that, I made it!" I remember talking to my uncle

Conway when I was home with Lifeteams. He talked about his

hike to Tsylos (Mt.Tatlow): "There's something about that

mtn. From when I left compared to when I have come back

from the hike, I feel really good! About myself and about life.

Makes me want to climb somemore".

...

There's always something that changes in me when I come

back from a hike. It happened everytime I came back from our

hikes during highschool and college. It happened everytime in

my life when I had to face something, I had to climb that mtn. It

was hard! I got tired! I needed others to help me make it

through. As I pray in my life, lol I think that prayer honestly

helped me make it up when I climbed a mountain literally.

When the sun is on our backs, we see everything before us.

We learn a lot in the daylight.

It is when the moon is on our backs, we don't see everything

before us. We take what we learned in the light

and put it to use in the darkness of life!

You learn the most in your walk through the valley

and through the darkness.

Pastor Vern of Northview encouraged us:

"Do not forget in your walk through darkness

what you have learned in the light".

...

So when you are having a rough time, know that you are not

alone in this. You have people around you climbing that same

mountain, some have climbed it before you, they hold the

wisdom of how to 'conquer' that mountain. Ask them how to

get through it. It is a humbling experience.

...

So I guess I started rambling on about mtns and day/night,

and the troubling times of life.. well, we all have it.

But the winter is sometimes, most times?, hard and rough too,

still, it is so beautiful. This earth needs winter as

it needs the summer. But if it had too much of that, well we

would have a dried up earth with dried up everything.