Reflecting without mirrors

"The Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes. The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning If you believe in God, you believe in a creator. A being so intelligent that He was able to organize this Earth. An Earth in which every piece is beyond any one person's understanding. People spend their entire lives becoming an expert on one piece of this creation and they still have unanswered questions. If you believe in God, you believe in a being that intelligent.  Why then, do the believers often question God's ability to make their life beautiful? If he can create a world as complex as this, then why do we hesitate to put our trust in him? Why do we wonder why something happened? Why do we wonder when something different will come? Why do we think that our expectations and plans must always be fulfilled according to our own will? Why do we question...

This is a picture of a Cairn in the Uinta Mountains; I took it on my way up King’s Peak this weekend. Cairns are found along many different types of trails to mark where to go. As I’ve climbed a number of mountains this summer I’ve seen thousands of different Cairns along many trails. All have guided me to the peak. As does every college student, graduate, and aspiring adult, I have wondered what my path is, and what direction I should head. I’ve made a lot of decisions over the past year that I’ve felt right about, but most of those decisions only led me to other decisions. Then my complete plan (which I had felt good about) was quickly overthrown. With each decision I felt “this is my destiny, this is the right thing.” Obviously, each of those things weren’t my "destiny." But really, when I look back, each decision was right enough to get me to the next decision. Hikers rely on Cairns to guide them up mountains they haven’t been to. The Cairns are usually ...