I sit here on my balcony planning my day. Wondering how best to use this blessed day, I look up at the sky. It all depends on the weather when you have a small toddler. I check my weather app. The air quality is excellent and the partial clouds will shield us from the burning sun. This combination calls for an outing in the nature.

I scan my mind quickly to recall all the commitments that I’ve engaged in. I have two events I have already committed. And I am contemplating adding yet another event to my already hectic schedule. I struggle to find a space in time where I could fit in one more event. This is already starting to turn into a stressful day and it is not even 8 o’clock.

I take a deep breath and look up. The blue sky opens up vanishing all my busy thoughts. Then I hear the call of my innate yearning. My soul desires to look upon the big blue sky and meditate on the Lord and the beauty of His works. And I know just the place for it.

When I lived in the country, the big blue sky was always just a slight tilting of my head away. It was always right above my head. Now that I live in the bustling town, I have to get to a location where I can gaze at the sky without the interruption of the tall buildings. The open nature is not far away. As a matter of fact, there is a nature preserve just a minute’s drive away. I visit that trail almost daily but today’s crisp air and crystal blue sky calls for something more special. Something like… a visit to a hogback mountain.

Hogback mountain is not really a mountain. It’s rather like a hill. But when you drive up the ascending road, you do actually feel your ears getting clogged which tells me that the elevation is pretty high. You quickly reach the top in just 2 minutes. But the view is completely different up there.

You will the breeze blowing from all four corners of the earth. When you go there during the week days when the visitors are scarce, you almost feel like you came to a Trappist Monastery. Silence and serenity greet you and you immediately drop the sense of time. It just disappears. In that place replaces a sense of a timeless retreat. This is therapy.

I recently become friends with one of my daughter’s class moms. She lives 40 minutes away from me and this vineyard on hogback mountain happens to be exactly half way between us. We both had another agenda during our mornings so we left it in the air. I love to plan everything without a sense of commitment. It gives you so much more freedom and when you do actually decide to commit, then you are fully present. You came because you fully desired to show up.

“Find your lane. Make space for the flow to show itself. Follow the natural rhythm of your life, and you will discover a force far greater than your own.”   – Oprah

I am sure Oprah was thinking of a far greater cause than this, but this quote clarified my planning for the day. I told my friend to text me when she is out of her engagement and we will see where we are then. If we both feel like hanging out then we can meet.

So logically, we met at the mountain top for our brief afternoon together. Our two girls played together and the two stay-at-home moms wondering their future paths talked. And that powerful force the meeting of our two minds and hearts created could not go missed. I was in the natural rhythm of my life and the flow was there. As obvious as the flow of the mountain breeze. I found my lane and it led me to this beautiful place where I’d rather be than anywhere else at that particular moment. It was one of those moments that signals you that you are going the right direction. That you are in the flow and that you showed up to the place where God has desired you to be.

We parted that afternoon and I descended the mountain. My friend and I took the opposite lanes to get back to our homes. We were in the different flow now. But somehow when the wind blows, we will be led back to each other again. We meet and part again and again. The flow will continue on leading us toward a force far greater than our own. This fellowship of love and affection among the people will eventually blossom into the fellowship of love between God and human. And as Elizabeth shouted “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”, I know I will shout on that day in the presence of my Lord-

How does this happen to me, that my Lord should come to me?