"You Are a Novel in a Sea of Magazines"

Lynn and I returned Thursday evening from a week-long Sabbath in the Rockies at Sonscape Retreats, Woodland Park, Colorado (http://www.sonscape.com/).  We didn’t go there burned-out or in trouble, or looking for anything in particular except a week away together, just us, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.  The place did not disappoint us and the experience there with the staff and new friends only encouraged us.

We came out of the mountains with a renewed interest in practicing good, replenishing rest at home and vocationally.  But we also came out of the mountains with a renewed interest in each other.  With a family our size it is easy to do the next thing for the kids and the house and the church, keeping up with all our and their interests and responsibilities, and miss each other.  We love our kids and friends and congregation and wanted to return to them, of course.  But truth be told: I wanted another week (okay, month!) in those mountains, just my bride and me. 

And not so much because of the superb weather and scenery, but because Lynn and I initiated a process of rediscovery of each other as we are now, not as we were eighteen years ago when we were newly married or when our children were all little.  In one of our assignments there I used a phrase from a Drew Holcomb song to describe how I experience Lynn: "You are a novel in a sea of magazines."  A novel lasts longer and proves it's literary value over time.  You can return to the story in its pages over and over again.  It gets better as you get more familiar with it.  I'm still intrigued by Lynn and love the story of our lives together.

Mike and Sandy Schafer of the Sonscape staff wisely and gently guided Lynn and me through our normal things of life—transitions, ministry pressures, shifting expectations as we and our children age.  Lynn and I realized before going to Colorado that we needed to take a kind of deeper inventory of ourselves and each other, but we didn’t know how.  One week at Sonscape doesn’t make us experts at it, but we came out of those mountains with a renewed enthusiasm for the love, family, and ministry God has given us in each other.

Lynn and I got to indulge our love of hiking each day.  Below are a few pictures from our hikes, taken with my iPhone.  In order: 1. Pikes Peak from our bedroom window. 2. The view at the top of Lizard Rock. 3. Lynn sketching the Ivy League Mountains beyond the Continental Divide. 4. Me atop the Crags: