What are you doing here?!

Being from Washington state and moving to the Midwest has been quite interesting considering the people of the Midwest and their general response when they find out where I am originally from.  Some popular responses include the following: "What are you doing here?", "Are you crazy? You moved from a beautiful place to be surrounded by corn?!", "When are you going back? Surely you aren't planning to stick around here when you are from there".
 Every time I get one of these responses I can't help but smile.  I usually give them some sort of spiel about how my Mom is from the Midwest and my Dad's parents are also from the Midwest so I still have some family in the area, yada, yada, yada.  This answer usually seems to satisfy the confused Midwesterners, but honestly there's more to it than that.
My desire to come to Iowa may have started as a curiosity about my roots, and wanting to attend Dordt College; but it has since grown. My past four years of living in different parts of the Midwest have nurtured a love for this area. The people who ask me the "what are you doing here?!" questions don't seem to realize what they have here.  The sort of dedication that the people here have to their families, friends, religion, and work can't be as easily found on the West Coast.
There is some other indescribable attitude that goes along with being from Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota.  They are just genuinely friendly, helpful, and courteous. When you make eye contact with someone in the grocery store here they smile back to you or wave and ask how you are.  If you were to do that back home, they would most likely give you a "why are you looking at me" sort of response.  
Now I suppose that I could be fantasizing the entire thing but I really don't think that I am. Sure Washington has beautiful scenery and different opportunities for various activities, but I rather pick the Midwest just because of the people that are here. I guess the reality here is that, regardless of where you are, there is beauty to be found.  God made out planet diverse and different just for this reason, that we can try see all the different sides of beauty whether it is found in scenery or in people. I love my home state, and it will always truly be home, but I wish that others could open their eyes to the beauty of the cornfields and prairies of Iowa too.

Getting Started

I guess I've always liked writing, especially if someone reads it and is changed by it some way.  So I am hoping that by faithfully posting to this blog about my little life lessons or insights that I can reach people and get them to think about things with a new perspective.  I will keep people anonymous and what I write is all from me, not the shared ideas of the people I know or the school that I work for.  I also have never written a blog before and I'm sure I will make a few errors in judgement along the way but, like I said, I hope my writings give people something to chew on because they usually have done just that for me.

Church Outside

Today I think that God wanted me to have church outside, so that’s exactly what I did.  And when I say outside I don’t mean the space between two buildings that you have to traverse to get to your car, to the store, to your house, to work, or where ever you are going.  What I mean by that is outdoors outside; in creation.  Experiencing nature, getting rocks stuck in your slip- on flats because you didn’t think it was going to be that kind of Sunday today.  

Let me back up for a second to give some background. Today, like every other Sunday for the past 3 weeks, I woke up, showered, put on some clothes, and left for church.  What I didn’t expect was that today was Pastor Appreciation Sunday in a church that I still don’t know anyone and didn’t feel comfortable chit chatting with the members who I have only exchanged “good mornings” with.  I’m not pointing any fingers at them; I just don’t know them… yet.  So from this uncomfortable situation I decided to duck out and go home.  But while I was driving I knew that if I were to go home I would begin to get to work to prepare for Monday’s class and that something about that wasn’t quite right.  I needed to spend time with God, One on one.  It was Sunday after all. 

And so while I was driving back, one of those brown park signs caught my eye.  Something inside of me reacted to that sign and I quickly exited from the interstate (not necessarily in the safest fashion) and made way for that park. 

When I arrived at the park, I knew that God had sent me here.  It had been a rough past few days, not for any particular reason; just going through another one of those seasons of change.  I know, and God knows, that I always feel closest to Him when I am in His Great Outdoors.   In, what I like to call, His glory and splendor that is evident in the works of His hands which are best examined in their natural habitat.

God lead me to this place to work through some of the worries and thoughts that have been running rampant in my head.  He even found a small forested area in the middle of Sioux Falls for me to walk with Him and talk with Him about how life is really going.  I sincerely believe that God made that park with its wonderful nature trail for me.  He knew that this strange Sunday would come during a time when life just is a little too chaotic for my taste, and that I would need to take this walk with Him and that this trail would comfort me.  I felt Him in the fall breeze and in the early morning warmth of the sun.  I saw His face in the people who were also enjoying His creation.  I knew, that in that moment, this was for me.

 It may seem sort of selfish to think and say that at first glance, but the truth is that God loves us all in that same way.  He may have made me a trail in a park in the middle of the biggest city for miles, but He has made something completely different for you.  God knew that a forested path was what I needed but you may need something else.  It could even be something as simple as a smile from a stranger or something as big as month long trip to Europe.  He knows what you need, and if you just open your eyes, you will see that you have it already.  

I know not everyone enjoys the "great outdoors" as much as I do, but if you can, even just once, try taking a walk with God and experience His creation for yourself.  You may be surprised what you find and what He has to say.