Greet One Another

Mt Antero with 7 other women and 1seemingly random man

Since last fall I have planned on hiking Pikes Peak on June29th (the day before my birthday).  It was exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday climbing with a group of women and the tag on was a Beth Moore conference, which to be honest I could care less about.  I have this thing with band wagons.... I don't want to jump on and in my mind Beth Moore has been a Christian women band wagon.  Lots of women jump on but I don't see many of their lives being transformed... but more about that in another blog post, this is about my 14er experience.  

I spent all of the winter and spring working out and telling myself it was so that hiking Pikes Peak would be enjoyable.  It was the carrot dangling in front of me.  The Saturday before I came home from senior high camp at Maranatha sick but determined to get better and hike and then a couple of days later the dreaded text that Pikes was closed because of the fire on it. So we scrambled to find another peak in close proximity to the Springs because we still had tickets to Beth Moore.  On Tuesday, one minute we were saying no hike and the next somebody had found Antero near Buena Vista.   And we were off....

I could give you the blow by blow on the hike, but it wasn't very eventful.  Instead I'm going to tell you about Steve, the 1 random man in our picture.  When we were almost to the top a man greeted us with, "I didn't know I was going to meet up with 4 beautiful women today."  Which is quite the greeting when you're sweaty and tired and sitting on a pile of rocks waiting for the energy to summit.  We started talking to Steve and found out he was also a believer and suddenly we were all sharing our stories.  There was a new spring in our step as we ascended to the top.  After summiting and pictures and calling our spouses we sang How Great Thou Art with Steve.  What a great place to remember who the creator of all this beauty is,

Last April, my dad shared with my husband this little tidbit.... Greet One Another is the most common command in the New Testament.  So is it possible that this is what God desires of us, that as we sojourn through this life we greet one another.  And that as we greet one another we provide encouragement for the journey, a new spring comes into our step, it gets a little bit easier for the moment.  Steve was a great reminder of what happens when we take the time to greet one another.  You just never know what encouragement you might be able to bring their way OR what encouragement they will bring your way.  

It ended up being a great birthday weekend... hiking and Beth Moore.  You are just going to have to wait and see what I learned at Beth Moore.  This summer has been full of life lessons and joy as I have sojourned, and not to mention the pictures with my new camera :)  I can't wait to share them all with you!