A Treasure in the Thorns

This last week at J127 has been extremely intense.  We've been spending hours upon hours, sitting in on lectures, taking notes, reading the Bible, reading other books, and learning the curriculum of the GOV teen events.  God has been doing some real refining fire in the lives of everyone here.  So today our leaders thankfully felt led to give us the morning off to let all us introverts internalize and process everything.  I went for a nice walk in the rain with my awesome leather Australian hat on. 

While walking, I saw some really pretty yellow flowers.  They kinda stuck out because everything was do drab with the rain.  I wanted to pick them because I'm a girl and that's what girls do, even sword loving ones.  Problem: the flowers were growing inside a thorn bush.  So I'm strategically reaching my arm in, slowly try to reach the flowers without inflicting undo pain on myself.  I succeeded to some extent.  But the end result was two bright yellow trumpet flowers and a swollen pinky.  Walking away I inspected them.  Raindrops on flowers are so pretty.  Totally worth the finagling it took to get them.

And of course I'm not telling you this story just because I knew you so wanted to hear about the flowers I found on my walk today.
     
I was thinking of how that sort of applies to me learning new things and seeking after God.  Truth is a treasure that I want to take hold of.  It's hard sometimes to get at it since I feel like it can surrounded by obstacles and thorns, like my doubt and lack of understanding.  In order to grab hold of God's truth and walk in it, we can get beat up, messy, and a little dirty but it's so worth it.

Bang, theological truth of the day.  God is awesome.