Life Matters

LIFE MATTERS is a new section featuring the stories of those in our church and our community whose lives are affected through the ministries of First United Methodist Church.

Reflections About Wilderness Trail

“After having just completed my third year of Wilderness Trail, there is much I can say about the experience. Though I was nervous my first year, I couldn’t wait to go.  We had one day of group building then we started the trail early the next morning. During the hike we experienced both fun and hard times.  These experiences form a unique bond between hikers.  Wilderness Trail has taught me a lot about God and what he can do through you when you open up to him. If there is anywhere that you can have fun and experience God in the fullest, Wilderness Trail is definitely the place to do it!”

Gordon Pierce, 9th Grade

Wilderness Trail for me, was a HUGE step out of my comfort zone. As a first time hiker I had no clue what to expect! One of my many fears was that we would get lost on the Appalachian Trail. But all those worries and fears melted away as soon as we hit the trail. I found that while I was on the trail for those four and a half days that my relationship with God seemed to grow. Just looking out from Buzzard Rock on White Top Mountain just literally took my breath away. To see with my own eyes what God could create put me at a loss for words. I cant tell you how excited I am for next year! To get the chance to be back up there on the Appalachian Trail would make me ecstatic!

Anna Del Gallo, 9th Grade

I felt like Wilderness Trail has helped me connect with new people and has helped me to develop a closer relationship with not only my group but God as well. As I was first starting out I began to feel a little insecure because I was in a group full of younger girls. I felt out of my comfort zone. I was the oldest of the group and I felt like they weren’t going to like me. Instead, they broke me out of my shell and gave me the confidence boost that I needed all along. With these girls I felt like I could have told them anything, about any situations that I was facing. I had so much fun at wilderness trail, and I hope to go back again next year. I cant wait to start my third year. I just know it’s going to be amazing.

Blakely Noble, 11th Grade

“Last week 67 hikers, including myself, hiked 45 miles on Wilderness Trail. This was my fourth year and every summer as I leave home, I ask myself “Why?” However, once I arrive I realize why I am there.  For me, Wilderness Trail is a time of reflection, peace, and one on one time with GOD.  I feel like I pray more in one week at WIlderness Trail than I do during the rest of the year!  The amazing staff at Wilderness Trail encourages us to take our increased friendship with God with us as we return home.  God also does some convincing of his own! When we return from Wilderness Trail, life seems different. Rap music starts to just sound like noise, and TV doesn’t seem like such a neccessity. I turn off all my electronics, and imagine I’m still standing in the mountains talking to God.”

Julie Hermann, 12th Grade

“Wilderness Trail is one of the most exhausting, exhilarating, tiring, terrific, miserable, memorable, breath taking and spiritual journeys I have ever taken.  Wilderness Trail is a time with no distractions: no phones, no watches, no Facebook, no video games, or even ESPN. It is a time for fellowship with, friends, sometimes family, and especially God. For me, it’s not just about the hiking. It’s a time when I realize what is most important in life. It’s a time to stop and listen.

In 1 Kings 19: 11-12, the Lord is found in the gentle whisper.  Wilderness Trail is a time of quiet, peace, patience, and stillness. I can’t even begin to describe the indescribable connection I come to find with God during Wilderness Trail.”

David Felicianio, University of West Florida

“I am always amazed when I come back from Wilderness Trail by how much joy everyone of our students has after hiking 45 miles through the mountains.  The trip is not a “fun” trip by any standards.   But we all love it (at least when we are finished!)

It’s an experience that  makes you realize how good you really have it.  Even if something is hard – you can still have fun. I love watching the students come together as the body of Christ – to listen to each other, share food, encourage one another, try not to complain when it rains an entire day, and see God around them in mountains and meadows.  At the end of their hike they are changed.

I have hiked these same trails with the youth for the past 6 summers and I come away stronger, humbled and in awe of how our amazing Father works in our lives. I am so thankful to our church for allowing our students to experience God in such a unique way! I am also thankful that the students hunger for the stillness and beauty of God’s presence that you find while hiking in the mountains.”

Emily Capes, Director of Youth Ministries

Tension. Hope. Contradiction. Light. Shadow.

Whew.  I tell you what.  Life is sometimes more than I can handle.

The ride I am on is definitely calling me to more.  More trust.  More hope.  More letting go.
Allowing God’s light into my shadow life.

John 3:19-21 – The Message
“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”

Parker Palmer talks about “living the contradictions”…”Here we refuse to flee from tension but allow that tension to occupy the center of our lives.  And why would anyone walk this difficult path?  Because by doing so we may receive one of the great gifts of the spiritual life—the transformation of contradiction into paradox…a larger truth than we had even dreamed.”

Where we live in the great dramas of life – the place where God and the world interact.  Living a life with God only points out the contradictions…the contrast of the truth of the spirit and the lies of our lives.  The Spirit wholeness and the brokenness of our lives.

It seems to me that most people don’t sit well living in the contradiction.  We either have such a HARD time with the contradiction that we walk away from God’s love and light…or we try so hard to live as far away from the world and to stay “pure”.

So I am attempting to live in the contradiction.  The light and the darkness.  The risk and the hope.  There are many things in my life that I would have NEVER expected even 5 years ago.

I drove to Dairy Queen on Scenic Highway on Tuesday at 6:10 a.m. this past week.  The sky was changing and I had to see it over the water.  The contrast of the dark sky with the beauty of the coral/yellow light piercing through…  I am so thankful for that time that I had with God.