She was wearing pink.....

She was wearing pink. Bright pink. In the middle of the woods - walking - searching - adventuring. Her pink stood out so brilliantly in her surrounding of nature. Like she didn't fit it. But she did. Fit in. Light shining through the trees. Her hair glistening with each sundrop. Leaves crackling with each tiny step. She was beautiful. As was her surroundings. 

As I lay on my blanket, I watched her.......and I thought: There is something about the woods. Something mystical. Something whimsical. Something dangerous. 

The woods....or the forrest. I always wondered what the difference was. From the country line road in Farmington, KY, it was the "woods" - or the "woods behind the house" to be exact. We would go back there and spend hours. Our own little scavenger hunt of sorts. Me, Jason, Heath. What would we find......in the woods? What escapade would we go on? What perils would we find ourselves in the middle of? What new creeks or hiding places we would come upon in.......

The Woods. The Wilderness.

I watch her and I smirk. She in her new outfit of play clothes bending down to pick up a branch of a tree that is four times her size. "I found it!! We could us this one!!" She is screaming to her parents who are about 30 yards away. It brings me to pause.

Searching.....Adventuring....Scaventure-ing....she found it!! And she was so proud.

I have been drawn lately to look into myself. Past pink play clothes and tiny crunchy steps and into the deeper places of wooded adventure. I am also drawn lately to this verse:

"John grew up and became Strong in Spirit. Then he lived out in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel." Luke 1: 80

The adventure of the wilderness. I went deer hunting with my dad at dusk. Saw a deer. Shot. Thought I hit it. And so we went searching. In the woods. Dark was drawing close, and the darker it got, the deeper I searched, and the faster I walked. In the woods. Me in my camo and boots.....................thinking back to the little one in her pink play clothes. A parallel came to mind. 

Young me. Old me. Little me in pink. Older me in camo. Youthful Innocence. Seasoned Courseness. Can you have both? I think  - yes.

You see, the wilderness is just that. It is wild. It is life's version of coming and going and living and learning and playing and building and running and jumping and loosing and hunting and searching and finding.............life. And finding God. And finding Truth. And Finding, well, yourself. I never knew what that meant really. Finding yourself. Or maybe its not just about Finding Something , maybe its also about Becoming Something. Someone. You. Maybe it's about being settled with the pink and the camo and walking in a wonderful blending of the two. 

It's about picking up something bigger than you are and realizing that it is not of your own strength. Looking at your Father in the distance and saying with a childlike excitement, "I found it!!"

We are the truest versions of ourselves when we walk the closest to our Creator. We shine a little brighter. We walk a little straighter. We seem to loose the need to Prove ourselves and stop the game of Striving and we, slowly, find that walking beside of Him in the Garden becomes the most comfortable of strolls. 

A stroll that, ironically, is surrounded by trees and leaves and thorns and bushes and shelter. It is woody and wonderful..... It is wild. But the comfort comes in knowing that it's His forrest and these are His trees - and you can't see one for the other. But you can:

Walk. Beside. Him. 

Shall we? Walk? I think, yes. 

In Pink Camo, nonetheless : ) Yes. Pink Camo.