180 Hours!!!

As of 7 tonight, when I had the calculator to assist me, there were 180 hours to go until I get on the plane and fly to NY for training.  I'm soooooooo excited!

I definitely haven't been wasting much time here.  The past week was spent with dear friends.  I met new friends at camp (Yay Oasis 2010!) and just had a blast getting to know some great high school students.  They're great (so are the leaders!).  Then, I got to join an amazing family (with 6 girls...) in Pacific City for a long weekend at the beach.  Then, I was privileged enough to join another WW family (and surprise the girls!) for a few days at Newport before driving home through Portland and hanging out with Emily and Nora there and back here in the harbor.

Over the past very busy two weeks, I have been so impressed by how in each of the situations, no matter how different they are (or how similar), I have been surrounded by people who are in awe of things bigger than themselves. At camp, kids were asking legit and awesome questions about life and God. They wanted to know Him, they wanted to understand this thing called life.  One night while we were at camp, there was a massive thunderstorm. Instead of hiding and whining, the high school students played.  We played volleyball, soccer, weird games they made up that involved running around in groups making odd Samurai motions.  It didn't matter what you were doing, if you looked silly, or if you didn't do anything... what mattered most was that they were impressed by the storm and wanted to take it all in. 


At the beach, the kids were playing in the waves and the ocean for hours, totally mesmerized by the power of water, the creatures in the sand, the tiny crabs, the sand dunes, the jelly fish, what could be lurking in the next tidepool...  They wanted to play in the sand, to play in the water, to play with things that are so big and so powerful yet so gentle.  The ocean is such a cool portrayal of power, grand, and gentle... sometimes I think I can learn a lot about God from the ocean.

Then there's the wind, and the power it bestows.  Flying kites, particularly the strong acrobatic kite that tried to pull me off my feet, exemplifies the power of the wind (and my steep learning curve for kite flying).  How it stays in the air, and how the piece of fabric, connected to a string, connected to our hand continues to hold our attention baffles me, but it does. Why?  Because it's greater than me, and I want to just stand in awe.

As I get older, jaded, bitter, (hopefully the last two to a lesser extent) or anything else that is associated with becoming older, I really hope I never forget to be awed by things I don't understand.  Considering how little in this world I do understand, and how many things there are that are bigger than me, if my hopes of living a life of awe are even partially achieved, I will spend my life full of not understanding and being impressed and mesmerized.  I think that's how I want to live.