Check Yo Self.

Alright, I know my writing has slowed down, but grad school is kicking my butt.  I took an exam yesterday and I have a brief break until I have a literature review due on Wednesday...*sigh*.

Why did I come to grad school again?

Okay so anyways, I have to share something.  Last weekend my dad visited me and we went hiking.  Though I do not doubt the rumors that Winter in Boone is miserable (my apartment is a cozy 45 degrees right now), Fall in Boone is stupid pretty.  I mean seriously breathtaking.  I am humbled every single day by God's beauty when I walk down Stadium Drive (my mini mountain) and I see the mountains looming over Appalachian's campus.  I mean I am so serious.  Living in the valley was absolutely gorgeous, but living on the actual mountain has a whole new perspective.  Visit me, people.

Check it out.  This is what I see when I walk down to class every morning:

This overlook, Howard's Knob, which sits right above the grocery store I shop at.  People run to the top of it (because they're insane).  I could be there in 3 minutes if I wanted to go right now (driving of course).  It overlooks App and I just think it's amazing.  Check it out:

Lastly, this image is from the parkway this past weekend.  My dad and I took the parkway on the way home from hiking and we couldn't help but stop to take a picture.

I mean that is just miles, and miles, and miles of beauty.  I can't help but think of how creative God is when I look at these images.  My dad and I got into an interesting conversation about the nature of children while we were hiking.  Most kids operate through instant gratification.  They can't comprehend how they literally can do nothing themselves, though they don't see it that way.  Appreciation for all the beauty that surrounds us doesn't come until later in life, that usually includes appreciation for our parents, as well.  I hated hiking when I was a kid.  I didn't care about beautiful views.  So what.  I thought hiking was hard and it made me sweat and there were bugs.  I needed immediate instant gratification.  I didn't want to hike 3 miles to some view.  Now, I love these views.  I feel so tiny and I love it.  All of the man-made features of the world melt away and I can truly see the raw, first-hand product of God's beauty.  What a gift.  It's humbling.  This idea of children being so incredibly reliant on their parents for every single need should be an illustration of our encounters with God.  When we grow out of that stage with our parents, we have to put that reliance on someone new.  Pray about it.  It's hard not to think we can fix everything all on our own.  That is probably one of my greatest struggles.

So, listen to this.

STORY TIME.

This morning I randomly woke up around 5:45 am.  I always sleep straight through the night, so it was kind of weird.  I was wide awake, which was also weird because I went to bed at like 2 am last night.  This incredibly strange rustling/clicking noise was coming from the oven and it was totally freaking me out (I have an electric oven, not gas, calm down friends.  I am not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning....yes I googled why ovens make random clicking noises).  So I got up to check it out and it would stop every time I would get up.  I was pretty freaked out...mostly because I thought there was a squirrel or some other type of small animal rustling around in my oven.  I am now assuming my apartment is so freakishly cold that my oven was just having muscle spasms...let's go with that.

Amidst my panic attack I checked my Facebook on my phone.  Clearly this has calming potential.  I had a message from a reader whom I had never met before.  I hope she is okay with me sharing this, but she shared me some incredibly kind thoughts about the impact of my blog.  It brought tears to my eyes.  She encouraged me to keep writing and to keep on seeking Him with an honest heart, so I have to be honest.

My first thought was not to share this on my blog, but that I couldn't wait to tell my mom, my boyfriend, my friends...blah blah blah.  Pride just started to consume me in this really awful way and I didn't even realize it.  All of a sudden, my oven started getting louder and this really odd feeling came over me that I needed to pray.  I talked to God about my pride and how sorry I was that I took those kind words all onto myself.  I can be so self-centered.  Immediately after I prayed the clicking stopped and I fell back asleep until...now.  When I woke up was when I realized that I wanted this to be a blog entry, not a story to my friends about how influential my words are.  

Just last week I was so humbled by God's beauty on the parkway...how quickly I forgot!  I need to be humbled every single day because I will let pride consume me 100%.  Sometimes I give myself all the credit and I can just feel myself doing it.  During the early hours of this morning God gave me an incredibly needed reminder.

We are broken and we can't do this all on our own...well I'm definitely broken.  Maybe you don't think you are...yet, and that's so okay.  It took me a while to understand how broken I was and obviously, by the nature of my posts, well you can see how I still forget every single day.

We all fall short by our own strength.   

Ephesians 2:8-10

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."