An Eye on the Prize

"Whose dumb idea was this anyway?" I asked.
"Pretty sure it was yours," says my friend Carol, "Don't you remember?"
"Yah, well it seemed like a good idea at the time."

That was the conversation we had on Sunday afternoon while perched on the mountainside 3 kilometres above the little town of Yale in the Fraser Canyon. My legs were screaming, my lungs were gasping for oxygen but I was determined to get to the end of this trail. Why? Because there was a stupid piece of tupperware hidden in a cave, just waiting for me to find it!

I know, I know... I'm obsessed with geo-caching. Yes, I can say it out loud and yes, Terry, I know that makes me a geek. But we all need something we're passionate about right? This is my thing. I love the challenge of finding something that's been hidden in the middle of acres & acres of forest... testing my observation skills and getting me to places I would have never considered before. And when I am soaked from the rain, splattered in mud and covered in a stinging nettle rash I keep my eye on the prize. It is what keeps me going when it seems too hard and I want to give up.


"But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Sometimes the life lessons are just so obvious. I love it when God does that.

26 Years

It's my anniversary today. Twenty-six years ago I was a new bride. Sometimes it feels like we've been transported in time, like in a Star Trek episode. Beam me to 2007 Scotty.

Tony and I celebrate our anniversary the same way every year. We go away to explore some remote place in British Columbia (that's me, hiking in the rain, up Stoyoma Mountain this past weekend). I have many friends (OK most of my friends) who don't quite understand the whole "sleep-in-tent-4x4ing-hiking-fishing" thing, but for us it's the perfect way to celebrate who we are and who we've become. Twenty-six years ago I was a very fresh faced teenager whose most rugged camping experience was staying at Manning Park with her family. He was 22 and grew up in a family where words like venison, thirty-odd-six and ford fender were used in every day dinner conversation.

How we ever got together still remains a mystery.

Looking back at these past years, I realize that we both were willing to embrace each others' passions in life, we were both willing to learn new things and we were both willing to give the other the space to grow . We are so not the people we were that day 26 years ago.

So today I thank God for that man he brought into my life in 1977. I thank Him for the strength and courage he gave us when we needed it.

Because August 30th was when the true adventure began.