I love the month for so many reasons and this year, it was packed full of change and good times with friends. 

We said Goodbye to three friends and their families who are all leaving the state/country. We’re going to miss them so much, but life takes you on adventures you never dreamed on and we cheer them on with God’s blessing! 

Our friends from Pennsylvania, Merle and Sierra and their little Andre came for a few weeks also. We had so much fun with them and spent lots of time exploring Montana and reveling in nature. We were in parts of Glacier for two days and absolutely loved the stunning scenery there this time of the year. 

The mountains on top of Going To The Sun road were covered in wildflowers and the day was perfect for a little hike back toward Hidden Lake. 

I wanted to stay forever 😊 I think it’s a tiny bit of what Heaven will be like💕 

We went to Many Glacier the next day. It was windy and a bit chilly but there was a lovely super easy walk around a lake and the water shone torquoise and wild.

Stephen spotted bear on the distance mountain slope and we saw a herd of big horn sheep up close. I loved this part of Glacier with its untamed ruggedness and want to go back again and explore it some more! 

We explored a ghost town, went mini golfing, and took the four wheelers back to the Little Belts.

This was a baby walker back in the day 😀 can you imagine all the law suits we’d have today over it😂

Back roads are the best 😉

The Little Belts were beautiful as always! The smell of pine and sun and fresh breeze can’t be beat! 

When I see the vast wilderness God spread, and the intricate detail to the ferniest moss, my heart worships. He cares about all the details of our life too! The big and the glorious events and the tiniest worry we may be facing today! 

He’s got us! And if He clothes the wildflowers in all their glory, how much more will He care for us!!

It rained all day today. We stayed cozy and warm and relaxed. Sometimes i think God sends rain to simply force us to rest and breathe. 😊

The past month has been extremely busy and full of summer days, friends moving, and friends visiting. I’m not exactly sure what happened to August. I blinked and the nights are cooler and days shorter, leaves are tinted with the yellow green of fall and there’s a familiar aroma of pine and harvest and hunting in the air. 

In some ways, September is my favorite month of the whole year. It’s the first month, ten years ago, that I came to Montana and knew  I wanted to stay. It was like my heart had found its home. The smell of sun baked earth, morning breezes, and golden dried grass over the hills remind me of that feeling and part of me wants to rest forever in that part of my mind and part of me wants to weep. 

It’s also the time of the year that my Love and I went hunting together for the very first time. We were newlyweds and although I nearly ‘killed myself’ on that first hunt, packing 8 miles into the wilderness and running blisters on my feet and having such aching legs, I had to lift them physically out of the sleeping bag, I still long to go back to that wild wide country in Dillon and have only the sound of squirrels, the whoosh of bird wings, the drone of a bee, wind through the pines, and the anticipated bugle of elk. It’s one of the absolute favorite things My Love and I have ever done together! 

There’s an amazing paradox I’ve been contemplating. The fact that some of my favorite memories have had pain involved. The fact that most life events that stand as mile markers are surrounded with hard things. The fact that when life is smooth sailing, we can celebrate in great ways, but those events don’t brand themselves with the same clarity in my mind. It’s the events that cause physical or emotional or mental stretching that I want to relive. 

I think I’m a bit crazy even wanting to go hunting again, for instance. It’s hard hard hard work in Montana. You hike and carry heavy packs and endure cold fingers and toes and no hot showers. Fierce winds. You eat cans of soup and huddle under sleeping bags and listen for bear. And yet, being in nature compensates for it all. And the joy outweighs the pain. 

Mothers do the same when they endure 9 months of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth and think they will never do it again….until that time comes when meeting another child outweighs the discomfort that goes with it, and the joy once again, outweighs the pain. 

I think God created us that way for a reason. Humans have a capacity  in this area like no other living thing does. We are resilient. Though we may be broken and crushed; though parts of us will never be the same, God brings us to places of acceptance. Places of fierce determination that our pain will not be wasted. Places of bravery we never knew we were capable of where we run straight toward the thing that scares us the most or has hurt us the most, and we use that energy He empowers us with to face the hard and the pain and the fear and we experience life like we never imagined. 

Beauty truly is birthed through pain. 

No matter what situation you find yourself in today, my friend, know that God has a plan. That joy WILL come in the morning. That as you face the HARD of this moment, God has a place of quiet rest for you. He  will meet you there and tenderly care for your wounds and give you strength for the moment. 

And when He asks you to run toward that HARD in life, know that He’s got your back. In fact, He walks before and behind you and places His blessing on you!

His heart is always for you!