JOY

6 Days.  That's it.  S...I...X. 6.  I can almost count the days on one hand.  Yep, I'm most definitely freaking out.  As it draws closer and closer, I realize that this is actually happening...and soon.  Very soon.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, and the salvation of your souls.

~1 Peter 1:3-9

'Inexpressible' and 'glorious' JOY.  That is something that I have been missing for so long.  But I feel that I am beginning to find it again.  Last week, I was able to finally catch a glimpse of that joy, that joy that only comes from God.  All I can say is, oh how I've missed it.

I mean, just look...

I love snow.  That's no secret.  It is my favorite thing ever.  Seriously...ever.  I love it.  And to be able to experience it and play in it with people that I love in a place that I love, well I think I may love that even more.  Let me just tell you what happened...At the end of December, I got to go up to the beautiful Camp Del Oro which might be my favorite place ever.  It really feels like home to me.  It was a really great getaway for a bunch of family and friends.  It was so great to be able to go up to camp and see it in the cold winter time instead of the hot summer time and just relax and play games and enjoy the company of everyone.   (Oh and locking my keys in my car...but that's just a whole other story.)  The next morning we all got up bright and early and went to go ride down some mountain sides.  I was SOO incredibly excited the whole car ride there.  I loved watching as the snow began to build up on the sides of the roads and on all the trees all around us.  I was freaking out.  If anyone was asleep in the car...they were not asleep for very long when I started seeing that snow.  

It was so great to be able to play in the snow again because it was the first time in a year that I was seeing it.  That is a LONG time to go without snow...especially for me.  So needless to say, I was pretty happy.  Afterwards we went back to camp for some dinner and just more hang out time.  This was a great night for me for 2 reasons:

Reason #1 - The most epic Yahtzee game of all Yahtzee games.  Here's a little background real quick to help you better understand the situation.  My cousin, Claire, and I play Yahtzee a lot.  It seems that we are both equally skilled and equally competitive in all of the games we play against each other.  So our Yahtzee games are pretty intense all the time.  You will know when one of us gets a Yahtzee.  So this game we played was quite possibly the most intense and the most amazing game we have ever played.  Just writing about it doesn't do it justice.  All I have to say is me and my lucky cup did real good... 

Reason #2 - For me, the snow and the mountains and the trees, that is where I feel and see God the most, in the beauty of it all.  That is where I find the kind of joy that cannot be explained any other way than it coming from God.  It has been so long since I have been able to find that joy.  It is so incredible that this God, this God that created all of this beauty, loves me enough to create that for me to enjoy and find joy in.  I was finally able to really see and believe that God has everything under control and that through all the difficulties I've faced these last 2 years, God knew exactly what He was doing.  He has been preparing me for the crazy new adventure that I'm starting in England.

He knows the desires of my heart.