Stability:  the quality of something that is not easily changed or likely to change; the quality or state of something that is not easily moved; the quality of state of someone who is emotionally or mentally healthy 

I’m relaxing in the home of a dear friend as I prepare to spend the next ten weeks of my life at a youth summer camp.  I start this very daring adventure on Monday.  The camp is beautiful and small and it is the most lovely of visions.  I am honored to be part of their story.

Yesterday, my friend and I had a mini adventure through Goblin Valley State Park and the Little Wild Horse Slot Canyon.  I was in awe of God’s creation and yet again, pictures don’t do any of it justice.  I am always blown away by the beauty and majesty of mountains, but yesterday, I was struck by something else: their stability.

In Christendom, there’s a lot of talk of moving mountains.  But there’s little meditation on the stability of them.  Walking through the beauty of God’s architecture, I was humbled by the intentional design of them.  They are made to be beautiful.  And they are made to stand.

In a state full of mountainous glory, I feel the unmovable groundedness of them deep within the corridors of my spirit.  There’s a view of a snow dusted mountain as I write this.  I keep looking up at it, eyes flitting from words to wonder.  I long for the ageless stability of these earthen depictions of heavenly glory.

I am ready and excited to start the journey of working at the summer camp.  But as I pray and prepare myself emotionally and physically, I come back to the earth rooted ummovableness of these mountains.  I struggle with insecurity.  Will I be enough?  Will I be liked?  Will I serve well?  I have added pressure onto myself to be what I feel like they expect me to be, and all the while my soul is singing, “Just be who you are.”

Today, I pray for stability.  I pray for groundedness.  I pray for a rootedness in who I truly am and an acceptance of the uniqueness of me.  It’s my deepest desire to serve well and to pour my very self into the people I’ll be working with this summer.  I know the best way to do this it to give of my truest and fullest self.

I reflect upon a piece I’d written a few weeks ago, letting the words of struggle remind me of God’s unending truth.  We are loved, and we are our most lovely when we rest in it.  When we choose to accept the grace he’s so lavishly poured into our lives, our hearts, our stature, we beam with the radiance of pure and inviting grace.  When we rest, we become a resting place for the souls of others.  

This summer, I don’t want to just be good to people.  I want to be good for people.  So I ground down in the truth of who God has made me to be.

My prayer of stability:

Lord, I am grounded. 

I am grounded in your unchanging grace and your lavish love.  I am grounded in your essence and your character.  I am grounded in your presence.

I am rooted in your truth and your wonders.  I am rooted in love, I am rooted in kindness. 

I am stable in your design of me.  I do not doubt it, I do not grieve it.  I stand deeply rooted in your intentional craft that is me.  And I serve out of my fullest capacity of God shaped uniqueness. 

I am rooted, I am grounded, I am stable.  I am yours. 

A few photos from yesterday:

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