Beauty Surrounds Us

By: Kathryn Heidebrecht

Building relationships, discovering yourself and discovering God through beauty and brokenness are the main places of growth I experienced during our canoe trip. We started off the trip with a prayer asking God to help us learn from His creation and this was a huge focus during our trip and a great way to keep God the center of our experiences.

I really felt that as a group we grew closer. We would bond while singing crazy songs in the canoes, preparing meals, being gross and smelling together and just spending time around the campfire in conversation. I loved the simplicity that we experienced on the canoe trip. We had no material things to hide behind, we were just real with each other and it was awesome.

The canoe trip challenged me physically and spiritually but I feel stronger and more confident because of it. I never expected myself to be able to canoe for hours, portage, carry an 80 pound food barrel and enjoy being dirty, but I really enjoyed every part. I felt closer to God throughout the trip because we were constantly surrounded by God’s creation and there were no other distractions.

On our first day of paddling the leaders challenged us to focus on the beauty around us and absorb the nature among us. We really discovered how incredibly beautiful nature is in its raw form. The second day of paddling we focused on the brokenness surrounding us. The common theme we discovered was that brokenness was found mostly among people. We are all broken and desperately need to rely on God for strength.

Overall, the canoe trip allowed us to realize that in order to completely soak in the beauty among us we have to be willing to become vulnerable and willing to seek God’s beauty. It sill amazes me how absolutely gorgeous God’s creation is. We need to take time to reflect and absorb the beauty around us. To experience God’s creativity and unconditional love all we have to do is go outside and soak in the beauty around us.