Forgiven and Loved

The past month has been a bit of a whirlwind. I moved back to my parents house, was there for 5 days and then my parents, sister and I left for our road trip. It was fantastic! We visited a high school friend of my dad’s in Albuquerque,NM and were there for 4 days. She took us to the historic part of town, up the mountains, and to Santa Fe. From there we went to Pagosa Springs, CO. This part of the country is beautiful. We took a drive from Durango to Silverton, which is known as the most beautiful drive in Colorado. From here we went to Denver. We stayed with our good family friends the Goldman’s. Robbie took me and my parents to REI and was incredibly helpful. I feel a little bit lost in that store. It was glorious to be with someone who knew what they were talking about. While there, I got to see lots of old friends that I haven’t seen in years which is always fun. After Denver we were off to South Dakota. On our way we stopped at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. We saw Deadwood, Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about going to see all of this. I was just happy to spend time with my family. Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse were awesome! I really enjoyed seeing them and learning more about them.

We got back from our trip on Saturday night and I left Monday morning to drive to Arlington with my friend Jacob and 2 kids from his youth group. We went and worked at Mission Arlington for the week. Mission Arlington is an apartment ministry. Basically, they work with several different apartment complexes and do everything from a food pantry, to picking up donated furniture and distributing it and having Bible studies. The family who started it were missionaries in Korea for 10 years. When they got back to the states, they thought…’what can I do here?’ We ended up doing a lot of pickups because I have a CDL and could drive one of their big trucks. We also got to work with some of the missionaries who do summer programs with the kids who live in the apartments. I mostly agreed to go because my friend needed a female sponsor to go. When it came down to time to go, I wasn’t really looking forward to going. As always, God was working to teach me things. Jacob did a little devo with the kids each night, and it was almost like I needed to hear it more than they did. He read from Phil. 2 about having an attitude like Christ. This is a verse I say to myself a lot, but it took on a new meaning this week. Usually, I say this when I know I am having a bad attitude about something. These verses talk about making yourself nothing and having a servant like attitude. God reminded me of this several times this week, and I feel like I will be reminded of it a lot in this upcoming year.