Here's my past two days in a string of words: hiking moss baby deer lost searching talking marriage cliffs ocean fish fire walking marsh man cave hillside sea anemone rocks vulnerable wildflowers climbing astronaut tidepools illegal piggy back ouch seashells reconciliation prayer knee-deep wet socks dome tent turkey granola peanut butter smores fire fresh caught trout daylight at midnight sleeping bag cold wake up daniel statue beauty fog banks stevie done.
After all that, the best moment transpired. Sitting by the fire and someone saw a whale breach the water! We all kept looking and a spout of water would rise every few moments. There were two boats out by the whales and we kept saying, "Man how awesome to be on that boat!"
After this, Michaelina and I spent about an hour playing keep away. She took my hat and kept it from me. She was running away from me and ran through the water then looked up at me and said, "You..." And I said, "Now Michaelina, I did not make you go through that water." Ha amazing how a 6 year olds mind thinks.
Eventually, Steven Foreman came to pick us up in the skiffer to take us back to KBM from Long Island, which is an uninhabited island (I've never camped on an uninhabited island but it felt like LOST. Plus there are no bears on the island). I would have waited with Stevie and Clay to go with the 2nd group but Steven said it was better for me to go with the first group to even out the numbers. So I jumped onto the spiffer trying not to get my boots wet and geared up for the boat ride back. Well, God was certainly looking out for me because as we were leaving Long Island we saw a whale jump! And Steven, being the 30 year old 10 year old that he is, starts boating towards the whale. As Hannah said, this was slightly dangerous but moreso fun. Well, we got pretty close to the whales and watched them jump out of the water over and over again. Beautiful hump backed whales! One swam about 20 feet from our skiffer and spouted so that we all jumped. I wish I could describe how cool this was. I don't think I could do it justice. Long-arched indigo bellies reaching for breath, sand streams on skin dive eyes to blue hued ocean. Poetry. Wahhhh. not really. I'll work harder and try to create something more majestic about the blue whales. It would be wonderful to be a hump backed whale though. Ahh to just glide through the ocean. We even saw a mother and baby whale.
These whales to me are a symbol for moments when we are not looking or seeking gifts, God will give them. I think he does that to see the delight that comes with surprise. To have a moment of realization of "Woah, you really do care for me."
I also am blessed to get to spend so much time with Stevie. We acknowledge that God made us an awesome friend combo. I love getting to share these experiences with a friend like her!
I also read two of my favorite Bible passages today. Isaiah 53 and 54. My Bible smells like ocean now because it got wet on the ride back from Long Island. There is so much to these passages to stop and ponder. "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering." 53:2-3. That description "a man of sorrows" really resonates with me. What does this mean in terms of how Christ felt? I wonder about this, thinking what kind of pain did he experience when everyone betrayed him? The physical pain is obvious. But what about mental, spiritual, and emotional anguish? When I think about the Gospel narrative and try to understand why Christ's sacrifice could have SO much impact, I think about the symbolic power in his death. Assuming that the Gospel is true (hypothetically), why was his death so powerful when right beside him other men died in the same way? What is it in the narrative that makes his death a climax? In other words, a point of shift. One reason that his death is so poignant is that God the Father removed any connection from Christ while he was on the cross. Christ lived the ultimate rejection. Being rejected by his disciples, the people of the era, well that's nothing in comparison to utter rejection from God. Thinking of God in a way that would makes sense to a secular audience, I would describe God as love. If you remove every ounce of love, what do you have? Hell. Hate. Suffering. Pain. Hopelessness. Despair. Truly if there is not love (or relationships, community) what is the point of being alive? At the end of the day, what does success, achievement, invention, award, beauty, what does anything matter unless it makes other people's lives better? (or perhaps one might say it matters because it gives one a sense of purpose...but that feeling must be short-lived if it impacts no one). So, maybe you're following me or maybe not. Imagine Christ, dying in the most painful, gruesome, degrading way possible, betrayed by nearly everyone that he loved, that he cared for, that he helped. And on top of that, rejected by his Father, his God, stripped of any love...I can't even the emotion and the hurt he could have felt...and to me that is eons worse than physical pain. That recognition of being utterly alone. Utterly without anyone to care. And yet, Christ chose this. Knowing he would be rejected and despised. Isaiah prophesied that this would happen centuries before he was born! How you can miss that? There are so many parallels in this passage. "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied..." 53:10-11. He will be satisfied. Hmmm. What kind of satisfaction must a person experience after dying, sacrificing his life, and seeing that he has saved the human race from inescapable separation from God. Man I bet that satisfaction is much better than anything I'll ever experience. It's a satisfaction that follows true love-"Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 I've mentioning what Stevie's friendship means to me. And this gives me a small glimpse of the goodness that comes from caring for a friend. Christ called us his friends (John 15). Hmmm. What a strange God.
Isaiah 54 is probably my favorite passage in the Bible. It speaks so deeply to God's undeterring forgiveness...his grace for even the blackest hearts. His ability to make light out of darkness.
"Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband--the Lord almighty is his name--the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit--a wife who married young, only to be rejected," says your God. "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the Lord your Redeemer. 54:4-8 I love this metaphor of the broken, rejected woman being taken back into the arms of a husband. This passage portrays God caring for a woman who has been hurt and abandoned. I love this because it makes me so encouraged thinking of how deeply God cares for all the women in the world...women abused, abandoned, hurt, without opportunity...women have been so historically oppressed because of Eve's curse. But that's not what God intended. Perhaps the world rejects women, but God loves them deeply. They are his daughters. And he planned for wholeness for every person, whatever gender. I think of the daughters who are caught in circumstances where they are not loved. Think and pray.
"Why nots and why. Hit me with a goodbye. I'll wait along the road to say hello again."
http://www.punjammies.com/
http://daughtersofhopeindia.com/
http://daughtersofcambodia.org/
http://www.ijm.org/
http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/about/chai-ling
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