I haven’t actually camped in years now.
A lot has changed since my friend taught me how to put on a climbing harness, how to belay, how to teach kids to climb and not fear the heights.
I’ve weathered many falls and winters in many states since the last time I took down a tent and weatherproofed campsites for the winter alongside my friend and others.
So many seasons have passed since that place was my home away from home… and my friend as the resident there… was a common sight and always felt a little like family.

I’m not sure what I feel about going to camp on Sunday other than that I need to be there
and that I need to bring my camera this time.

I know I need to bring all of who I am
I know I will bring that carabiner that I carry my keys on – which I first acquired when my friend was teaching me so long ago
I know the winter wind will bite my face and bring tears again… I can already feel them.

The tears will come from the wind.
The tears will come from the loss of that friend.
The tears will come from the knowledge that other young women will not be able to learn and grow under the tutalage of my friend.
The tears will come from the act of returning to that place, and in doing so honoring that time in the past – that crucial time and the crucial role my friend and that season had in my life.

When you spend time with her her love and care is so profound and so real and pure that it feels tangible. It feels as though it is a blanket that is wrapped around me warm and safe. It is the kind of love that only God can provide, because its deep enough and pure enough and true enough that it is truly safe and it is truly tangible and it is truly real. It is hte kind of love that our heart yearn for with each beat – the kind of love we were created to experience and to share constantly. And yet it is a kind of love that is all to rare in our world today.
It is the love that redefines words… where safety is not about locks and security – but about the ability to overcome and move beyond due to the network of love and care surrounding….
where safe is not about doors or objects… but about emotions and identity – opinions and thoughts – dreams and expression
it is warm – it is comforting – it is enveloping – it is real. And if we focus on God we can carry it around with us. Though all to often it slips away when daily life distracts us with it’s “emergencies” and “urgencies”

What would it look like if I could love even one single person like that tomorrow?
What would it look like if I could love my parents like that?
Or my colleagues?
Or the person that I have yet to meet?

What if I was so grounded in my relationship with God and who God says I am and how safe and loved God says I am…..
that I could pour out that love so freely to everyone I come in contact with?

That love that my dear friend shared – that she wrapped me up in when in saw her today – that is the love that we are all called to share… to experience and then to overflow in it so that it splashes out and touches all the lives around us.

But how do I put that into action in my life today?

I want to LOVE like that. I want to LIVE like that.

My love of photography has grown exponentially over the last few years, and with it so has the size of my hard drives and backup storage drives. And that is fine for when I am here at home, processing them, editing them, posting them to blogs, and sending them off to people.

But what to do when on the road? When I get excited about something I can easily fill up 20GB within a few hours of shooting. So if I plan to go away for a week at a time.. how do a handle all of that data? Where do I put it all so I can keep shooting?

A few obvious options pop out

• Bring along the large 17″ laptop I have and an external USB harddrive to move all the files to
  • Pros: No Cost – I already own both.
  • Cons: Big, Heavy, Carrying much more than what is needed. Not a good solution for during the day downloads… you are gonna leave this in your room all day.
  
  
• Purchase a netbook with a very large harddrive to move the photos to
  • Pros: Small, Light, full laptop capabilities including photo editing, or blogging if net access is available
  • Cons: Netbooks with a big enough harddrive are more expensive. Netbooks are more fragile so you run a larger risk of losing your data to corruption
  
  
• Purchase a netbook and use a USB hard drive
  • Pros: Small, Light, Cheap, already have the USB, full laptop capabilities including photo editing, or blogging if net access is available
  • Cons: USB is separate thing to carry around.. find in hotel room, but not great if out and about during the day.
  
  
• Purchase a “image tank” whose purpose is to download a CF card quickly for backup… such as a Wolverine PicPac 320GB or a HyperDrive COLORSPACE 320GB or an Epson P-7000.
  • Pros: Super Small, Light, designed to do just this thing. No adapters necessary, Carry with you everywhere for never running out of space
  • Cons: Most costly option, no editing capabilities. Only some have screens to even show off your photos before you get home
  
  

Tough Decision I have here…
Anyone have any experience with any of these options?
Taken a trip where you want to bring the minimal? Where you have no plans for email or internet use while you are gone… just want to take pictures and enjoy the trip?
What would you recommend????

So here we have my wrestling cousins, and my cousin Wes who coaches and is the team photographer.

As such, over the years I have spent a lot of time praying for Discernment.
However, it was not until just a few days ago that I came to realize quite abruptly that there was a whole piece of Discernment that I had totally been missing when I prayed.

I have spent many hours praying for myself or others to have Godly Discernment… to know what God would choose about situations… to Discern, to feel, to know how the Spirit is leading. Often I’ve prayed that Discernment of God’s voice of a situation was be as strong as how we can easily discern the voice of a friend on the phone even if we are woken from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. I have prayed a lot for folks facing decisions to have the Discernment they need… for their doctors to have Discernment in advising treatments.. etc etc etc

But it was not until late Friday afternoon that I realized that part of the gift of Discernment. part of recognizing the Holy Spirit within us… is not so much about external decisions as it is about Discerning who we are.
Through the Bible God has told us all many things about who we are as children of God.. And through the Spirit God has told each of us individually many things about our individual selves. But how often do we pray that we would be able to discern what is true and what it not true about ourselves?

I reached a point late Friday after talking and praying and thinking and feeling…. where I felt truly centered… and truly in the really RIGHT place of being who I was… and in the really RIGHT place of being in the center of where God wanted me to be.
It really felt like a moment where God was trying to communicate to me that THIS is what RIGHT felt like… feel these places, feel these boundaries, feel these strengths… that THIS is what is REAL and RIGHT.

It has given me a lot to think about. This concept that part of having Godly Discernment is not only about external decisions…but it is just as much about what you believe about yourself and your actions… what you believe and let stand as truth about who you are, who you think you are, and who you show the world you are. This concept that part of our relationship with God is not only about having to learn who God is…but also having to learn who God realy created each of us to be. And many that there are ways and times when it is just as important to know God’s stance on a decision as it is to know God’s opinion about a characterisic of mine.

Due to the laptops, and the long hours often worked – I already had remote access to the office via the VPN software on the company laptop and our various security measures.

Instead of a phone – I have a gaming headset complete with microphone plugged into my laptop. There is some software on my laptop such that whenever I am logged into the office – it is as though I am there and my laptop rings and I take calls as usual.

Due to the nature of my work in Data Integration Consulting – most of my interaction with clients is done over the phone – so they have not noticed any difference between me sitting at my desk in Texas while on the phone vs. me sitting in my basement in Illinois on my laptop headset.

Most of the wider company meetings are already set up for phone and desktop sharing because we have offices in multiple cities. So I am simply one more remote person connecting to meetings that were already run that way.

Our team meetings now include me on the phone. However, it was not unheard of for us to have someone working from home on meeting day and have them dial in. So while it is now the standard – it was not anything new for the team as a whole.

We have inner-office instant message system which is used for most communication to start with… and so that works great no matter where I am.

So I have found that as far as getting my job done…. most of my work life is very much the same and I am just as productive or more productive here in my own environment than I was in a cubicle in the office.

I do have to work a little bit harder to chisel out some intentional time of checking in with my teammates and friends at the office to see how they are doing as humans… and not just how certain projects are going… which is harder over IM than when you are walking by and can tell how busy someone appears.

Also there are some things about quick interactions between folks of different teams – that I was definitely used to doing by getting up and walking over to find the other person.. .and I’m having to spend more time finding the right words to express things well in emails… or tracking folks down by phone.

I miss being immersed in the personalities of all my geeky coworkers day to day.
And I miss silly things about office culture such as pranking people’s cubicles for their birthdays, or even bagel & donut tuesdays.

I have found that it’s a lot easier to put in a lot more than 40 hour weeks. When you have your entire work setup always accessible to you it’s easy to wander to your desk and get lost in work again after diner.

And once in awhile its a little harder to get out of bed knowing that if I was a less responsible person I could play rather fast and loose with my hours. So I am actually thankful that I’m living with my folks and that my retired father is home all day. And I’m thankful that I work at a job where I log time directly to the projects that I am on, so that I know in obvious numbers when I have put in enough (or too much) work for each week. It makes it easier for me to make sure I don’t have to stress about making sure I’m “earning my keep”… but also to make sure that I’m not burning myself out.

All in all it has been a successful adventure and a rather smooth one. I think I am learning a lot about myself as an employee – about my work ethic – about my priorities. This journey of remote employment was unexpected, but overall I think it is good for my soul and for my growth.

It’s almost two in the morning and I’m awake because ever since a test I had done at the hospital on Friday my body is totally and completely out of wack. I’m awake for 3-6 hours at a shot and then so exhausted I can’t keep my eyes open.

Tonite, as I’m sitting at my computer at this hour, my mom pads down the stairs to check on me – to make sure I’m feeling ok – to make sure I’m consious – to make sure I do not need to go to the emergency room.

And the reality of my current life hits me in a powerful way and I actually cried.

There is a part of my soul that is a strong and independent woman. A woman that has liven in 4 states within 6 years. A woman that has loved and has lost and has sought hard to find her path. A woman who lives and loves. A woman who hikes and rollerblades and plays ice hockey.

But there is a part of my flesh that some days would let me climb that mountain – but today has me moved across the country to live with my folks again at age 30 so that someone will be around to help take care of me and watch out for me the next time I black out. This part of me is dependant. This part of me is weak. This part of me tries to overwhelm everything else and show me only darkness.

But I refuse.

Tonite even as I sit here just hours after being on the phone with the on call cardiologist trying to determine if we were taking a run to the ER or not…..
Tonite I refuse to let the darkness take over.

Because even if my flesh does want to hide in sleep and rest, and even if I do need to spend much of my day asleep or resting…. I am still that independent woman. I am still strong. I still dream and I still love ferociously. I still live.

The darkness does not win. Not today. Not here.

It’s a true story – and it’s a great example of how God works in my life. When it comes to struggles and challenges, I have alot of decisions and alot of tough steps to make – just to get to the 10,000 foot mark. But once I get there – unless I want to do a header back down and start the climb all over – or give up all together on the goal….
Then I need to surrender. I need to admin that at that height I’m useless and it’s all in His hands, and I need to be real and honest with some people around me, to hold me accountable, and to be there to step in and grab me before I take a header back down off the height.

In the last week, I’ve hit that 10,000 foot point with a few different challenges in my life. It’s been a huge weight off my shoulders for Him to take it – for Him to be in control of those things now. But it’s also a little overwhelming.

It’s a lot like standing on the top of Avalanche Peak in 2004…. being in awe of how huge and amazing everything is – God is. And feeling really small amidst it all. And exhausted from the climb.