Dialing In

Dialing In

I went camping this weekend with some fellow church dudes. We had a blast. Great fellowship, great food, great weather, great time!

I genuinely enjoyed getting to know my new friends. I don’t have a whole lot of friends and I tend to keep to myself a bit despite the fact that I actually really enjoy hanging out with people. Not sure why, but im sure it has to do with everything ive been dealing with lately. But anyway… I learned a lot about myself this weekend. In a strange way I used our many hours around the camp fire to really observe other people and intently listen to people talk. I also kind of took everything people were talking about and sort of put it up against my own opinions and thoughts and really got dialed into myself… if that makes any sense.  It was cool seeing how different everyone is. How different I am. My whole life I’ve compared myself to people and always tried to be like them or be cool or fit in. But this weekend it was cool to hear what everyone is like and how its totally ok to be different. In fact, its cool to be different. It feels good to be different. Why would you want to be like everyone else? Boring. So anyway sitting there listening and talking about a whole range of topics was really interesting and really beneficial. However, I think the most important part of the trip was the hour and half I got to sit by myself around the camp fire while everyone else was still sleeping. I really used the time and the setting to get really deep into my heart and have a good quiet time. The warm fire, the breaking of dawn, and the rustling of the wild life around me really set the mood. The other day I listened to a 6-part podcast about the phases of a Man’s heart throughout his life. It was from the “Fathered By God” book by John Eldredge. So I guess coming off that recent podcast and the setting of the morning… I really got to do some quality soul searching. It was almost as if I became very content with myself. I became OK with who I am... accepting of myself, my personality, my interests and my traits. Not sure why or what about this little camping trip triggered these emotions but it did.

The rest of the weekend was great. The weather was incredible. I got FRIED on Sunday. Erin and I took a nice little trip to Chesapeake City park and brought a blanket and laid out for a couple hours. It was nice to just sit there and talk. Just us. No distractions, no phones, no people, just us. Sunday evening her parents took me out to dinner for my birthday. They gave me the coolest gift ever, my first ever THOMAS KINKADE painting. So sweet.

So it was a great weekend. I think in my quiet time I really focused in on my passion. What I want to do. Now I need to sit back, pray and maybe look into a couple things.