South Mountain State Park

The end of 2012 will mark the beginning of our 24th year in my adopted western home. I came here to pursue dreams that never came true, but found realities better than I could have planned, for God is far more interested in my growth in grace than my personal ego needs.

The view from South Mountain has always been a touchstone for me, a place to get away quickly from the "madding crowd", to pray, to admire the breadth and length of the Valley of the Sun. I took Charlotte and Lucy up there yesterday to share this place of renewal. Before the trip we stopped by a senior care home to see the couple that had first introduced Lucy to our congregation, she has known them for over forty years. It always comes down the the balance between people and places in our physical lives in this world.

Yesterday at worship some of our friends returned from their summer homes and I was so encouraged to see them again, as these people have become such a key part of our time here in Sun Lakes. I still remember sitting in a Mississippi Library looking at a Phoenix Yellow pages and wondering what the city was like, and now I could point to every area, to the west where 80,000 people were watching the Cards lose in the Dome, to ASU and the Airport, to the Superstition Mt range in the east. It's my home now.