adventure

My husband, Mike, loves a good adventure. He's a skydiving instructor who gives tandem rides, and he's been given the opportunity and thrill this past year to jump out of hot air balloons with passengers. He even took our son, Nathan, for his first tandem skydive out of a balloon yesterday, and our daughter, Sara, got an hour long balloon ride today at 8,000 feet. She did a great job with the camera on these photos too.

This quest for adventure that Mike lives has led me recently to pull a book off my shelf that I haven't cracked open for about 8 years. It's a book that impacted me deeply though, and it addresses our heart's longing for beauty, adventure, and intimacy. The book is The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge. A few words taken from the book and workbook:

"Something calls to us through experiences like these and rouses an inconsolable longing deep within our heart, wakening in us a yearning for intimacy, beauty, and adventure. This longing is the most powerful part of any human personality. It fuels our search for meaning, for wholeness, for a sense of being truly alive. However we may describe this deep desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life. And the voice that calls to us in this place is none other than the voice of God....

God is the One behind all the things that have ever moved our hearts. We know, for example, that the world of 'creek-side singers and pastel sunsets...the austere majesty of snowcapped mountains and the poignant flames of autumn colors' (and brilliantly colorful hot air balloons against a bright blue sky..italics mine) has all been given to draw our hearts to God."