At Beacon Rock, another high point (literally) of our trip to Oregon.
Life is short — take the trip, make the call, do the work
My boyfriend and I recently took a trip to Portland, Oregon. We stayed with friends who let us use their spare bedroom and living room couch, and we packed in as much as possible. A few highlights:
Fall weather in September. That might’ve been worth the airfare.
North Mississippi Avenue, known as one of the “cool” parts of Portland. Just be sure to choose a specific business on said avenue before trying to find it. There are a few different North Mississippi Avenues, none of which are connected. After finally finding the right one, we ate at Samurai Blue Sushi (delicious) and browsed a funky lightbulb store in which the woman at the front desk greeted us, “Hey … I’ve got lightbulbs!” and wouldn’t let us leave without giving us a couple of humorous lightbulb-related drawings.
Powell’s City of Books, which claims to be the world’s largest independent bookstore, in downtown Portland. It’s a multi-story behemoth.
Broder, a restaurant serving “traditional Nordic fare.” The Hood River location (an hour and 15 minutes from Portland) had everything from “Danish pancakes,” hollow pancake balls into which you can drizzle maple syrup or lingonberry jam, to salmon fishcakes with dill tartar sauce. Also has Portland locations.
Cannon Beach, 90 minutes from Portland but absolutely worth it. Just do a Google Image search. It’s gorgeous.
Fish and chips at Ecola Seafood Restaurant & Market in Cannon Beach (also the name of the town). Yummy yum yum.
Hiking at Cape Lookout State Park, an hour and 35 minutes from Portland. Basically you’re walking through a majestic forest, on a hillside (mountainside?), overlooking the ocean. It’s insane. If the 5-mile trek sounds too long, you only need to hike about a mile in to get the view.
There’s plenty more. However, when my boyfriend and I were talking about our favorite parts of the trip, the first thing he mentioned was eating takeout with our friends on their roof the night we arrived.
The food was good (Little Big Burger), would’ve been better if we’d eaten it at the restaurant, but that wasn’t the point. My boyfriend was grateful to spend time with his friends, who’ve been living 2,500 miles away since 2018.
If you have good friends, put forth the effort. Send the text. Make the phone call. If you can, save the money and take the trip. You never know how many chances you’ll get.
Another thing my boyfriend and I are about to do is celebrate my four-year anniversary with MCL. Yay! I do think I’ve found more gray hairs at my temples since I took over this business, but hopefully I haven’t aged as much as Barack Obama or George W. Bush after their first terms. In all seriousness, I’m so happy to be able to do this for a living.
Since I started working from home during COVID — and have continued doing so because it suits me — I’ve had to learn some self-discipline.
I’ve had to move my devotional time from first thing in the morning to lunch. If I do it in the morning, I’ll spend time with God — but then spend too much time sitting around doing nothing afterward. I’m less likely to fall into that trap at lunch.
Without putting work above my time with God, I want to make sure I give MCL my best, because I believe it’s my calling, at least right now. So am I going to take it seriously, or not?
As Willie McClain, the white supremacist-turned-Christian-ministry-leader in our feature story would say, “Are you real, or not?”
How do you spend your time? In the words of Clint Herring, “We’ve got about a hundred years to plant seeds.” It goes by fast.
The Bible says our lives are but a vapor (James 4:14) that appears one moment and vanishes in the next. What would you do if today were your last day before eternity? I hope I’d start sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).
I’m still learning how to do this. And no, I don’t spend every moment telling somebody about the Lord. But I’m becoming more aware (I hope) that my life needs to point more and more to Christ.
And I hope the stories in this magazine do that, too. Enjoy!
