Taking Care Of You
If you have wandered into this part of the website, you are like me, searching for that ephemeral, elusive thing called "calm." With families and jobs and responsibilities both in and outside the home - man or woman - calm isn't easy to come by. And when it visits, it doesn't stay for long.

Sources Of Strength

"I look to the hills from whence cometh my strength." That passage from the Bible has always resonated for me. I come from the hills you see here. This is part of the Chattooga National Forest located in North Georgia, where I grew up. This area is so remote cell phones don't work and nobody much seems to care that they don't. It is glorious. Any time you head up there you are likely to see bear tracks and king snakes and deer. The creek water is crisp and clear and utterly unpolluted. It's about a thousand miles and two worlds away from Manhattan.

I don't get up here much, but when I do, there is something both liberating and grounding about the experience. One can hear here. The birds chirp freely, cicadas and crickets buzz signaling their presence. When a twig snaps, it's a sign that someone - or more likely - something is approaching. Up here in the hills, the wind speaks, whispering a siren call to stay and linger. It's important to heed the call. For up here in the hills, what also speaks loudly is one's heart. Freed from the burdens of business and the handcuffs of homemaking, one realizes the beauty in simplicity. If life off the mountain seems complicated, who made it that way?

"How," the breeze inquires, "did our time together become something one must schedule? Once," the gentle wind chides, "a younger girl from down the road spent endless afternoons with me, dreaming of her future. Has realizing the dream meant our meetings no longer matter?"

The wind's plaintiff message sent a wave of melancholy over me. Yes, life does sometimes seem far more complicated than it ought. Here, in this world above the world, one sees more clearly. And then, I look to the hills and know that there is my strength. Reminded of my Creator and His plan for my life, I resolve to let the wind blow me more closely in the direction God wants for me.

You may not have the North Georgia hills as your source of strength. I ask you, though, is there not some place outside, away from it all, that nourishes your soul? Return there. or head to the closest facsimile you can find.

"I look to the hills, from whence cometh my strength."