Beach vs. Mountains

I am a beach girl. I love everything about the ocean that I get to experience. I love jumping the waves and swimming, I love riding the waves on a boogey board, I love that my skin gets sticky with dried salt; it feels like nature’s exfoliant. I love lying on the sand and feeling the sun warm my body while I am listening to the waves crash against the shore. I love the smell of the salty air, but my favorite thing about being next to the ocean is how close it makes me feel to God. To stand next to something so much bigger than myself and marvel in its glory leads me to a place of peace.

I am in the mountains. We are on our family vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My husband won the coin toss. I wanted to go to Florida, he wanted to go to the mountains; he won.  So here we are.  I will never admit to him that he was right and that I would love it.  That wouldn’t be any fun for the two of us. Instead I will  make snide and sarcastic comments about how he is trying to naturally induce an anxiety attack by making me ride an 1,800 foot high ZipLine and drive up roads that should make you harness yourself into a rail bound cart that you would find at a theme park.  I will fight him tooth and nail when he asks me to go up 400 feet to the Space Needle and have dinner. I will go because I am competitive and stubborn, but I will put up a fight.

 The drive here was beautiful. As we approached Lynchburg, Virginia we could see the incredible masses of Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. As we got closer their girth surrounded us.  They became our constant companion while we finished our 468 mile journey to the Tree Tops Resort in Gatlinburg. Now we are in the heart of the Smoky Mountains.  The smell is quite different from the beach as one would expect. It smells smoky. I am assuming that is where they got their name, but my husband says it is from the foggy mountain peaks that look like smoke. I will research it later. We just arrived last night and I can already tell we are going to have an adventurous week. There is so much to see and do. I am already in love with these God created masses of rock and trees.

I have a whole new appreciation for the scripture Mark 11:23 "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”

To see them and think that sometimes in life we have problems that big, but if we truly believe in God we can cast those problems into the sea. Thank you God, for your continued teachings, and for continuing to humble me. Maybe I will tell Tom he was right. Nah, I’ll wait till we get home.