Creation Care Mom

Welcome to July! Can you believe this year is halfway over?

Each blog this month will reference a song of faith that also connects to creation. I hope you enjoy.

The first season I worked in Yellowstone was tough. I was 19 and naïve. It was technically my first job. I’d only done babysitting beforehand. Although cleaning hotel rooms was monotonous and physically demanding, it was the social atmosphere that I struggled with the most.

I had lived with my parents until I went away to college. I attended a private Christian liberal arts university with high expectations for behavior. As such, I hadn’t experienced the “party culture” that can be found when you gather hundreds of young-ish adults together.

Yellowstone was my wake up call. I was placed in a dorm with suite style rooms, two bedrooms with a connecting bathroom. This meant I had 1 roommate and 2 suitemates. Although these rooms were designated alcohol free and exclusively for those under 21, my roommate and suitemates regularly got their hands on alcohol. They also had male visitors on a very regular basis. About 2 weeks in, something happened with my roommate and her friends and she resigned. That was such a blessing for me. My new roommate was older than 21, but signed a pledge against alcohol. She kept it. I am so thankful. We didn’t end up close friends, but at least I now felt safer in my own space.

At that time in my life, my relationship with God was struggling. Just after my junior year in high school concluded, a friend of mine passed away in a car accident. I don’t know, but doubt he was a Christian. I spent the next two years feeling all the feelings towards God, anger, guilt, sadness, distance, frustration, doubt. I went to a Christian college, knowing I needed that environment, even when I didn’t feel it, but not much shifted during my freshman year.

Yellowstone changed that too. Old Faithful hosted a group sent by Campus Crusade for Christ. Most of them worked in housekeeping, either with me in the Snowlodge or over at the Old Faithful Lodge. They were specifically sent as missionaries primarily to the many employees from overseas, but I really connected with them. Through them I began to find healing. They would hold meetings around a campfire, give their testimony, and sing praise songs. Something about being outside gave it new meaning to me, but also hearing what they had walked through. It was so encouraging.

I started praying again. Praying deep and long instead of shallow and superficial. Confident in my bear country skills, I would take hikes alone. Praying aloud the whole way. Sharing my life with the Lord in ways I’d withheld for too long. As much as it was a spiritual journey, remember, I was in Yellowstone, hiking to mountain vistas, waterfalls, and geysers. My physical journeying took me to places that could only speak of God’s hand, his creativity, his power, and his beauty.

That summer, Phil Wickham’s song “You’re Beautiful” became my anthem. Given where I was living, how could it not? The first two verses go:

“I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say you’re beautiful

I see your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who you are, you’re beautiful

You’re beautiful”

As amazing as Yellowstone is, I wasn’t worshipping the creation. It was pointing me directly to my creator.

Over those 2.5 months he restored my soul. I felt closer to him than ever before and since. For everything I have weathered since, I have had that summer to anchor my faith.

Could I have had that experience working in a major city? Of course, God can use anything. But I have found that nothing draws me closer to him than time in his creation.

What about you? When do you feel closest to him? Does nature play a role?