10 Random (and Occasionally Silly) Observations of a Mountaintop Experience

The fountain view outside my dirty hotel window

1. It's easy to see how Jesus could have stayed up all night praying. It's impossible to go to sleep when you're high on God.

2. That is, until the sleep deprivation catches up with us mere mortals, and we crash. Hard. Unfortunately, I didn't crash until 1:00 last night.

3. Prayer partners are miracles. Mine is Althea, and meeting this sister in Christ has made the mountaintop feel like home.

4. There's a LOT of paperwork on the mountaintop.

5. My Stephen Ministry team at home gave me greeting cards to open while I'm here. Linda's card included this delightful watercolor painting. I'm carrying it around for Show-And-Tell, and everyone loves it as much as I do. When you look at it, don't you feel like Jesus is giving you a hug?

6. After just one full day of training, I'm in awe of what our two Stephen Leaders have done and continue to do. In an ideal SM group, there would be at least six leaders to spread all the work around. We have had just two leaders for over five years. The complexity of the task is astounding. I appreciate in a whole new way the hard work they've done and the depth of faith with which they have done it.

7. I've used about a quarter of the tissues my SM friends gave me. The trainers keep springing touching videos on us, and I'm sharing tissues with my table mates. Sniff, sniff.

8. I am an enthusiastic appreciator of music, but I fought an impulse to apologize to the people on either side of me after we sang a praise song this morning. Poor people, having to stand near me, singing! Perhaps I should give them tissues to stuff in their ears. Or just lip-synch like Milli Vanilli. That might be kinder.

9. "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2 This verse has two sides: sometimes you're the subject doing the bearing, and sometimes you're the object whose burdens are being borne. If you can help someone, do so. If you need help, let others be a blessing to you.

10. I'm crashing. Hard. Have a blessed night.

The view of the flag outside my dirty window