To say that I love Autumn would be an understatement. With all my heart and soul I embrace it when it arrives. I love the preparation that the forests go through for the coming winter. If you are out in nature enough you can actually feel and smell it in the air as well as your soul. The arrival of fall also means that another summer has passed and its time to relax and welcome with open arms the warm welcome of my friends and and family scattered across the west.
It has been a slow fire season for me up here but I couldn't be any happier. Being immersed in nature in Alaska offers excellent opportunities to ponder life and reevaluate the necessities of it. Besides the fear that there is a huge grizzly bear hiding behind every bush waiting to kill me there are very few distractions to bring you back to reality. Millions of acres of open country for a man to roam in. I feel like I found something this summer that I lost a long time ago... A heart that is happy from the simple fact that I am alive. When I first moved out west I was so enthralled by the very existence of nature. I had that awestruck look in my eyes like a blind man who just received his vision back while standing in front of Mt Everest. But over the years I became somewhat numb to it all. Spoiled by all the acres of burned country I have seen. All those years mopping up and looking at the ground. It hit me last week when we were on our final project of the year down in Wrangell - St Elias national park. I decided that its time for a change that would require me to to give up the security of a steady paycheck to pursue a deeply buried dream that I have suppressed for many years... Becomming a NOLS instructor. A change that would put that sense of fullfilment back into my life. This is something I have been praying about for quite a while and waiting on a confirmation from the Lord about. The Lords timing is so perfect and amazing.
So when I was down in Wrangells it came. On the drive in to the park I was alone and was listening to a randomly chosen sermon from a church that I used to attend in Whitefish. As it turns out this sermon wasnt so random and it was as if it was exactly spoken for me. Its been great to actually hear Him this summer. I know He has been talking to me my whole life but latley I have been able to be quiet enough to actuall hear what He has to say. I wont delve into the details because i doubt it would make sense to anyone but me.
Then as if that wasnt enough one night after work a buddy and I got dinner and a beverage at the local watering hole. In making small talk with our very attractive waitress I found out that she happens to be engaged to a guy that I took a NOLS course with back in 2004. Crazy. Low and behold the guy lives part time in McCarthy and ownes one of the adventure guiding companys there in town. So he came down, had a beer and we cought up where life had taken us over the past eight years. It was almost as if what happened next was God himself being like " you think thats cool, check this out" and in walks a beautiful redhead that I took the NOLS emt class with two years ago. My mind was blown. Its truly amazing how the Lords timing works. Its good to be humbled by the awesomness of these experiances. Just when you think life is good, when you believe in the Lord He make it exponentially better. So with that, I have decided I am done making plans, and I am going to just go where the wind takes me. I will go where my heart leads me.
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