Hidden Alleys.

[Imagine it's the weekend of Nov 4-6]

This weekend Nicole and I hosted a youth group. It was weird hosting after two months, but it was wonderful as well.

We were in two separate serving groups, and my serving group headed out to Ray of Hope on Saturday morning. Ray of Hope does a lot of neighborhood clean-up…restoration, even. Ray of Hope also does home repairs for those who can’t afford the high cost of structural home damage, but whenever groups go, we are typically helping clean up a neighborhood or making an abandoned lot look like an actual lot instead of a jungle.  Ray goes all over Philadelphia, cleaning the dirtiest places, the places people have given up on and just feel too overwhelmed to even consider cleaning.

Our project that morning? Tackling an alley.

If I had just been walking around this neighborhood, I never would have thought that what we cleaned up was an alley. It was about 3 feet wide and houses lined each side of it. Dogs barked at us as we walked back and removed thrash, fallen tree limbs, and several random objects. (Window pane, old fence posts, a shoe…)

I’ve done Ray of Hope in all sorts of weather…very cold, very rainy, very hot…been there, done it. It adds an extra amount of challenge to the work, just sticking with it and being positive sometimes. At the end of the morning or afternoon though, it is always wonderful to look back and see all the work you’ve done…the difference you’ve made in this neighborhood or this lot or this alley.

The weather we had that day was PERFECT alley cleaning weather. It was fab.

We finished that morning and the alley actually looked like an alley! It was incredible. As we collected all the tools and circled up to pray together, I thought about myself and those around me. Did we have “hidden alleys” within us, waiting to be cleaned up…restored? Maybe that’s silly of me, but I often find myself thinking of things like this, whether it’s a filthy alley or a shop-vac that makes me think of it. I thought about how I knew I definitely had hidden alleys at one point or another…places within me that I had given up on and just felt too overwhelmed with, and I remembered how God worked in me, cleaning out the lies and the insecurities and the doubt. How I’d even gone back behind Him and made the alleys dirty again. But He keeps coming back, cleaning it out. Restoring me.

He’s restoring you, too. May this be perfect “alley cleaning weather” for you, and for me.

With love,

Emily

Poconos: Footprints

[Imagine it's the weekend of Halloween!]

This weekend I was off adventuring in The Pocono Mountains with Kels, Nicole, and Nicole’s friend (and now my friend too!), Jane. We arrived Friday night and quickly got ourselves settled in by the fireplace, enjoying hot tea and playing Scrabble. We went to bed to the sound of the fireplace crackling and popping, snuggled in to our blankets and sleeping bags.
Saturday morning we awoke to a light dusting of snow across the mountains. It was a beautiful sight, to see the colors of fall and the first signs of winter colliding together. We ate breakfast and eventually bundled up to go on a hike to some of the falls. Snow had started falling steadily by then, and it just became more and more beautiful as the snow clung to the pines and to the ground beneath our feet.

As we got closer to the falls, the trail got a bit trickier. Large slick rocks replaced small rocks covered in snow, and flat ground turned into a hill here or there. At one particular point, we had to go down a small hill to get to the falls. This hill had a lot of those large slick rocks. Now, let me just tell you…I am not the most coordinated person and I just don’t trust my balance in general. So, I took my sweet time going down this decline, putting great thought into where I made my next step, for fear of falling and sliding down the rest of the way. I suppose that could have been an adventure in itself, but I didn’t want to try it. I was behind everyone else, which I found helpful because I could look to see where the other three had stepped to get down. I got to the bottom and continued to follow the footsteps left behind by my friends. I joined Nicole again, who had stopped to wait for me, and we continued walking, the sound of the falls filling the woods around us. We got to a part where you could tell there was mud, due to the fact that either Kels or Jane had come close to stepping in it themselves. We followed the path they took on the side of the trail, and it was mud free. At one point I thought I needed to cross to the other side, and as I started to do that I quickly found my foot sunk in cold wet mud. It wasn’t too bad, though.

We got to the falls and it was beautiful. We took pictures, and just really admired everything around us. The snow had picked up and by then we were all pretty cold, so we turned and headed back to Aircastle.
Once again, I was at the back. Nicole and I walked together and just ahead of us were Kels and Jane. The snow had covered a majority of our footsteps from our way down to the falls. The hill I had hesitantly descended was a lot easier to walk up, and it seemed odd that this was the same hill I had taken so long to walk down.

As we continued walking, the snow became so thick that we could no longer see Kelsey and Jane ahead of us, nor could we see their footprints. And it made me think.
Sometimes, the path is laid out for us…footprints have been left behind by those gone before us, footprints to help us find our way. But other times, the footprints have been covered or they just don’t exist and we have to find our own way. Not necessarily by ourselves, but we can’t look down and say “Hey, so and so went this way, I think I’ll follow!” It’s a time for us to make our own footprints, instead of putting our feet in other people’s footprints.
I think there are a variety of emotions that you can feel about something like that. You can feel alone or you can feel frustrated or confused. Your confidence can waiver… wondering if you can make the right steps along the way.
On the other hand, you can also feel excitement for something new, something fresh. You can take it as an opportunity to just get yourself out there. You can run with it and just see where it takes you.

I think for me right now, I’m finding myself on both types of paths…those with steps laid out and those without. And maybe that’s everyone. I mean…we are all on our own personal journey that is unique to us. Even if it’s our own journey, we still have help along the way. I think that’s beautiful. More beautiful than the snow on the pines, and the fireplace glowing.
Anywho. That is my Pocono ramble. I hope you’re doing well, whatever type of path you are on right now.

With love,
Emily