Nature adventure

So yesterday I decided that the perfect weather was pulling me into its glorious beauty. I had a definite itch to go outside...so I didn't hesitate to scratch that itch and went outside to play. By play I mean that I went out for a wonderful, almost three hour, hike by myself. Being the social person that I am doing something like that alone was rather out of character, but strangely enough I had a great time and think I will do it again soon. Being outside and enjoying nature makes me feel just a little closer to God and that is an incredibly great feeling. It allows me to just look around and smile at the beauty of His graceful creation.

There are little things all around that if we don't slow down we miss the fine touch of a wonderful creator. Like this picture. For some reason this just captivated me. These two trees, interwoven at their roots, the depths of who they are. Between them runs a path and they clearly lead separate lives and yet they are rooted together into the same ground. Yea, that's cheesy, but when I saw this it instantly made me think of love. Before seeing this I don't think I would've been able to tell you what I picture love to be, but if you ask me now I can say that this is it. This is the image that will forevermore come to mind when I think of love. Call me a hopeless romantic, guilty as charged. Here are some more pictures from yesterday.

On a completely separate note... I've become obsessed/intrigued with the word grace. As I was on my biweekly drive up to school last Thursday I was listening to one of Matt Carter's sermons. The sermon that I listened to was about grace (I believe the title of it is "Grace Defined" from 12/23/07). He defined grace as the unmerited favor of God, with unmerited being the key word. He used a story to illustrate the difference between mercy and grace, which made the word grace come alive for me in a whole new way. I won't spoil it for anyone who wants to go listen to the sermon, which you definitely should consider doing. Point being that the word grace in my mind now is incredibly deep in its connotation, more than it ever was before. It just blows my mind that God gave us mercy and more importantly grace, absolutely incredible. I rejoice in the fact that I have been saved by mercy and grace!=)