JOY!

Where?! Down in my heart!

Sometimes I like to sing cheesy christian camp songs. I'm sure many of you can relate.

This week was really pretty cool. I tried to have my eyes and heart open to experiencing and learning about joy. I came up with a few things. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." What does that mean? Well um I think it means that joy is something deeper and bigger than happiness. If you have joy it is from the Lord and it's lasting. I can still be sad, even heartbroken and still have the joy of the Lord in my heart and lean on that to get me through. The joy of the Lord makes me strong. Also, i think joy is something that flows out of love, or love flows out of joy...either way. I'm finding the more i meditate on these fruits the more intertwined they are. It's really stinkin cool. Being joyful doesn't mean you'll never have any other emotion than that. Because i'm not so sure that Joy is exactly an emotion. It's more of a defined "thing" for lack of a better word, in your heart. I'm not explaining all of this very well. But I know it in my heart. I guess that's the best thing I can say about joy. You KNOW without a doubt when the joy of the Lord is in your heart. And here's like a p.s to my thoughts on joy. Sometimes my joy becomes so great that I just can't contain it and i have to make a noise or smile or laugh just to praise God with it! :)

yesterday I had a very relaxing day off hanging out with Nikki and Tiffany. We went to a staff members house to swim in their pool and float on rafts all day. It was soooooo nice :)

This weekend we start one of the ranch's biggest fund raisers of the year with a 24 hours bike ride called the Agony. We loaded three U-hauls this morning and all of the staff took off around 11 for Loyalton, a town about 2 hours north of here. There are three station and i'll be out at the Beckwourth station. It's the middle of nowhere where we can yell and cheer the riders on and see some really beautiful scenery. The students are all SOOO stoked...and so am I! I can't wait to tell you all how it went and what I experienced.

I only have 29 days left here...that is so WILD! AH! I'm starting to feel kind of sad about leaving the ranch family. I will miss the students and interns very much. But I still have that excited feeling to know i'm getting on the plane to see my family :) Even though the season of leaving is getting close...it is not right now so I am still very present here and I'm not wishing the time away at all. I still feel so much excitement to have these days left with everyone.

Loving you all more every day!!! :)