I haven't been writing much lately, but it's definitely not because there aren't things that I want to share! I have struggled with what to use this blog for and up until this point I've used it to update friends and family around the world on what God has been doing during my time in Charleston and the transition I've gone through from coming here with nothing to now having a career and almost a permanent home. God has used me in awesome ways and provided for me in miraculous ways, but our adventure isn't even close to over!
This will begin a new era of blogs focusing on the adventures, spiritual and physical, that God leads me on!
My parents are visiting Charleston for the week so last weekend we spent some time exploring some of the surrounding natural areas. My dad has been trying to take pictures to further develop his website (www.wildriversgalleries.com), so I took them on a short trip to Patriot's Point trail, which is a narrow stretch of woods between some sports fields and a golf course that often produces some good birding.
We got skunked! I think we saw less than 10 birds along the trail, and I was about to turn around and go back to the car when I remembered that there's a field at the end of the trail that I've seen some cool stuff in, so we continued to the field. We actually found a good number of dragonflies and butterflies along the road on the way to the field, so my dad finally got to snap a few pictures. I've also seen some green snakes along the road here, but I wasn't able to find any of those when the camera was around... fairly familiar story for wildlife photography. They can sense the Nikon, but even more the Canon!
We got to the field and the trail around the field hadn't been mowed recently. It was still fairly early, so the grass was still wet with dew, but we decided to walk through anyways. I ended up soaked up to the knees and literally had puddles of water in my shoes. Waterproof shoes are an awesome invention, until you get water on the inside because waterproofing apparently works both ways!
As we were walking I looked up and saw something walking along the trail ahead of us, so I lifted my binoculars to check it out and it ended up being a coyote. There's actually a sign at the beginning of the trail where we had parked that says to beware of coyotes because they can be found in the area and they're dangerous!
Well, as I'd grown up believing, this coyote was by no means dangerous and took a quick turn off the trail as soon as it was able to catch our scent walking up behind it. It's interesting to me that something as wild as a coyote lives in areas that are so populated by humans. We build fences and throw concrete and asphalt down as many places as we can think to put it, but some animals adapt and continue to call it home. It reminds me of the bubble we love to pretend we live in. We try to keep our mind and eyes off of those things that are clearly around us so that they don't bother us. It's not just the coyotes and spiders we choose to ignore, but we also avoid areas of town where we might encounter hurting people or might get asked for change by a homeless man on the street.
Everything starts to blend in as we choose to put our blinders on, but I want to challenge you to ask yourself what your purpose on earth is. I believe that it's not to make a name for myself or dwell in my riches, but to live out the story that God has written for me. And I think for myself, and for everyone else, God's story for us is to share His love and His Son with whoever He puts before us. I want to invest my time into those people who need hope, because I've found Hope and it's very available to anyone searching for it.
