As my two friends and I enter our familiar domain, we have mixed feelings. I know I feel a certain blend of displacement - as if I do not belong to the flat land, canopy trees, and brick-building lined streets. And yet, if there was anything I learned this summer at SMS, the training program with my campus ministry, it is that I do not belong anywhere in particular, except in my identity in Christ as a believer. There are three things that this summer has taught me: how to cope with being a human being, which at times can be beautiful but often too hard to understand, that feelings are fickle and they are not God, and how majestic God is.

The Smokies took my breath away. I took the photo above at the top of a bald mountain called Max Patch in the Pisgah Mountains. I struggled with insurmountable doubt this past year. The beauty of the mountains alone didn't confirm to me that God is real, understanding the character of God's love did. "...and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

I could wrestle with my doubt on the highest peak (I've ever ventured to), with the most beautiful sunrise just as much as I wrestle with it in the worst of rejection and pain. And so, most of all, not only did I learn that East Tennessee is as stereotypically southern as it gets, I learned surrender this summer - the relinquishing of my feelings and doubt to the God who is more than majestic mountains.