I am
continually amazed at the goodness of the Lord to me. As of a week ago, I was merrily going about
my normal life, not even realizing that Boone, North Carolina existed. Okay, that’s only marginally true. I was well aware that there was a city, in
the western mountains of North Carolina called Boone that was reported to be
beautiful. I had never been there and
didn’t have any expectations of going any time soon. It was not, you might say, on my radar. The Lord saw fit to change that quickly and
in a rather original way.
It all
started innocently enough. A friend
mentioned there was a great retreat center up in the mountains and I should
look into going up there for a much needed break. Before I knew what had happened I was on my
way westward. There were phone calls and
paperwork and all kinds of preparations, as well as a scholarship thrown in
there. There were plans for kids and
pets and work stuff, and it all fell right into place as only the Lord can do
it.
This place
that I find myself is breathtaking in more than one way. Let me explain……
After a
tedious drive over from Raleigh, I realized I was finally within 10 miles of
His High Places. I thought the worst was behind me. I had no idea what lay ahead of me. As I reached the gates that led into the
community, I was stunned by the beauty of this place. Large iron gates swung open smoothly with the
entry of the code I was given. I drove
slowly through, onto a road that, I can only describe as, winding. Actually, winding doesn’t begin to describe
it. This road looked like the strange
doodlings of a sugar crazed preschooler!
There were more twists and turns than the drama at a middle school
dance. There were tiny bridges, little
tunnels, brooks that were babbling, and drivers gawking, and that was just in
the first couple of miles. After that,
things turned serious.
As I started
to ascend the mountain of the Lord to the retreat house, the road
quickly became more narrow and, if possible, more winding. I decided very quickly that it had been
designed by a tiny little man, in a tiny little car, a car with wings, so when
it fell off the side of this mountain, it could just circle back and try it
again. Suddenly, my mini-van seemed like
a big rig of mighty proportions. I crept along at about 10 mph, seemingly only
inches from a five thousand foot drop off. Now, my dear readers, you all know
that I never, ever, ever exaggerate so you can be assured that every word of this
narrative is correct and accurate! Every
time I was sure I was up just as high as I could possibly go, the road turned
and I rose even higher. At one point, I
came around a sharp curve only to find another sharp curve the opposite
direction lay in front of me. Then I saw
them. There were mirror on metal poles
all along the curve. Mirrors! You know the kind I’m talking about, don’t
you? Stores put them in blind corners so
the staff can watch for shop lifters. Those kind of mirrors! Now that is just what I needed! A curve so sharp, on a road so tiny, dug out
of the side of a mountain so high up, that to drive it safely, I needed to
check the mirrors to make sure I didn’t hit an old man winding his way down on
the back of a small burro. I was sure
that I had accidently stumbled onto a long forgotten game trail and not
actually a real road, or maybe it was one of the old mountain passes that I
read about in the Little House on the Prairie books. You know, the ones the
settlers used to get over the mountains in the covered wagons? Yeah, it was that kind of road.
After what
seemed like hours of heart pounding, nerve wracking, sweat producing, teeth
clenching travel, I rounded a little curve and my mouth fell open. In front of me was a house unlike any I had
ever seen before. A beautiful two-story
home stood before me like a graceful southern debutante. Double balconies bedecked her like strings of
elegant pearls draping the ball gown of a woman from a time long passed. If this was a young lady in her dancing
finery, however, her ball room floor would be decidedly too small for
dancing. Almost as if balanced on the
head of a pin this magnificent structure rested on a piece of ground that was,
in some places, barely 10 feel wider than the boundaries of the porches that
surrounded it. It was as if the lot had
been carved from the side of the mountain.
The results were that, when viewed from some windows, it seemed as if
you were suspended above the valley below.
The effect was breathtaking.
What
followed was a week of intense joy and intensely hard work as I wadded through
all the Lord had for me. I made friends
that I can’t imagine ever losing touch with and learned things about myself and
my God that I will never forget. You can’t
go wrong with a place that assigns movies like “Seabiscuit” and “The Kid” and can then draw important
spiritual parallels from them the next day.
One thing I
learned is the importance of taking time out of everyday life to reconnect with
the Lord. It’s an easy thing to do, to
become so caught up in the dishes that need to be washed and the laundry
calling out your name and the dinner that has to be cooked and the kids that
need to be beaten picked up. Most
days are full of house work and child rearing, homework and cooking, walking
the dog, running errands, slopping the hogs and plucking the chickens. Okay, I’ll give you that one slight
exaggeration, my hogs slop themselves.
That’s how I raised them.
The point I’m
trying to make is, I have often times felt guilty taking time out for myself
and I don’t think I am alone. As moms
and wives, we women have a tendency to put everyone else in front of us. It’s easy to ignore our own needs until, like
a bad tooth finally gone too far, we can no longer ignore them. I would love for all of my friends to have
the chance to experience a week like I did, but I know that not everyone will
be as fortunate. I think the important
thing is, that we learn to recognize when we are reaching the point of no
return, you know, that point when we are one sibling battle, one spilled drink
at dinner, one cranky teenager, one sour load of laundry away from a meltdown
of epic proportions, and we do something about it. It may be something as simple as dinner out
with some girlfriends, a movie all alone on a Saturday afternoon, or a couple
of hours with a good book and a cup from Starbucks, is all that we need to help
us to refocus and regroup.
The word
tells us Christ came to give us life and life more abundantly. This is not just eternal life, but life here
as well. Why would he want his children to
go around sour faced and whiny? Yeah, not really the best advertisement for
becoming one of his; “Come to God and become ill tempered, cranky,
unreasonable, full of self-pity, hanging on to your sanity by your fingertips,
and otherwise, all around a joy to be with!”
So let’s do ourselves a favor and remember, when we are caring for
everyone else around us, don’t forget ourselves. We need a little love too, and if your life
is anything like mine, there’s not a lot coming from the offspring of teenage
years.
So I
challenge you this week to take a little time for yourself, even if it’s
something as simple as a bubble bath and your favorite soda. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of intelligence. So go be smart! I’ll be here trying to catch up on all the
laundry that I missed doing in the week I was gone. By the time I get things back to normal I may
need to head up that mountain again!
