I love hills!

Two summers ago I tagged along with my town's cross country team for their morning workouts. I was at about the same pace as a girl who normally ran by herself and we ended up being running buddies. We ran down an old dirt road almost every morning and some days we would reach a huge hill. Well, huge by a Texan's standards. Either way, I wasn't particularly excited about running up this hill! The first time we ran the hill together, my friend turned to me and said, "Ok, on the count of three we're both going to yell 'I love hills!' Ready? One, two, three," "I LOVE HILLS!" I can't think of that experience without smiling. Hills really did become one of my favorite parts of our morning workouts as we shouted and laughed together while facing what could have been the hardest part of our run.
Yesterday my roommate and I did our visiting teaching. We are blessed enough to be teaching two girls who are just incredible young women. As we spoke with each of them I was just blown away by their faith and trust in God. I felt like they did more for me than I did for them. The second girl we visit taught said something that took me back to two summers ago. She told us that when she is studying and isn't particularly excited about the topic or the text book she tells herself, "I love this! I love my class and I love this text book!" Then she remembers things a lot better and just has a much more enjoyable time doing something she would have to do anyways. We sat together in her apartment as she talked to us about this strategy of hers and I had to make an effort not to stare in awe. Lately I have been having a bit of a hard time being optimistic about life. It seems like I was caught up in all the "have-tos" of my life and was struggling to find hope for tomorrow (or for today for that matter). Hearing this sweet girl talk about how she chooses to "love it!" struck a chord with me. Life is full of hills and text books and plenty of other seemingly unpleasant things. I can choose to drag my feet and complain all the way through until it's over, only to find myself face to face with the next challenge or I can choose to love it. I can choose to meet every climb with determination and shout, "I love hills!" Then the hill, or text book, or whatever struggle I'm facing won't be breaking me... It will be building me. I'll be able to look back on my life and see that those hills are some of my sweetest memories.
The more days I live the more I realize that even if I don't know exactly where I'm going, I just want to know I'm good with God. A friend of mine once told me, "it's the best feeling in the world- being worthy and just living your life knowing you're ok with God." Isn't that true? The world keeps spinning and crazy things keep happening, but the more I turn to God the more I feel in my heart that everything will be ok.