Hiking Out in God’s House

July 31, 2009

Start with the photographs. Words will follow.

I have a new love. Hiking. It only took one short trail along the California Coast for me to be wooed and now I’m hooked. I have new trail shoes, a daypack with frame, and my hiking shorts have pockets within pockets. I have a GPS and map apps loaded on my iPhone, and I’m now spending as much time exploring REI’s hiking department as  I spend slurping espresso at Starbucks. Well, not quite the same amount of time but close.

The best news of all is that D shares my new love which is why we planned several hikes while on vacation recently in Oregon and Washington. Now, maybe you’re some Amazonian wilderness babe and so appreciation for the spectacular wonder of nature is nothing new for you, nor is it for me. Having grown up in the Northwest I’ve seen some spectacular panoramas in my time. I’ve watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. I’ve stood on a lookout point over the Columbia River Gorge and looked down at the river weave it’s watery dividing line between the green mountains and granite cliffs of Oregon and Washington. Years ago I stood on a hill top beside my dear father and watched in silent awe as Mt. St. Helens blew her top in a dazzling cloud of white smoke and fiery ash.

But following a trail through old growth forests with nothing but the sound of my own foot fall, the chatter of birds and the rush of distant water crashing over rocks had me feeling (and acting) like a hyperactive six year old whose caught their first sight of Disneyland. I was pointing in every direction at once and excitedly calling out to D mile after mile, “Honey, look over there! Look at that! Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous? Can you believe that over there!? Did you see that tree? Look at those wildflowers!” One minute you’re stumbling up a rocky trail in the shadow of a thousand ancient evergreen trees and the next second you round a turn in the path and find yourself face to face with some majestic waterfall, wading through water that only months before was snow on the mountains above you, and climbing on fallen logs that once stood as tall and proud as the gigantic trees now towering over you.

On more than one occasion on more than one hike the same thought came to me; the God who made all this made me. I know that might not sound like much in the way of deep thoughts but this is one of those times when you needed to be there because the story loses in the telling. I can tell you this much; it wasn’t a passing thought that crossed my mind and then faded without fanfare. It was the kind of thought or maybe a new awareness of an old thought, that struck me so deeply I was taken to a place of reverence I’ve never encountered anywhere else. Not in church. Not in scripture. Not in poetry or song. A whisper of a voice washed over my soul like the water that gurgled through the underbrush near the stream’s edge, “The same One who made all this loves you.” God who designed it all, made it all, and holds it all together despite our every attempt through greed or neglect to destroy it tree by tree and stream by stream, loves me, is bound to me and is committed to me. This is the very same God who is on my side and in my corner. When I stand I do not stand alone.

Me. Standing on a fallen tree. A fallen tree laying across the span of a crystal clear pool of water. A crystal clear pool of water that spills into a three hundred foot waterfall just to the left of where I stand. A three hundred foot waterfall in the center of a forest of trees as old as time. And then I remember how it is that I wonder at times if the God who made all this is big enough and creative enough and wise enough to help me through the hard times that come my way. The problem before me seems insolvable. The damage done to a relationship seems beyond redemption. The thing I need to do is too big for me even with God’s help.

I’ve come to a decision. The next time I question whether God can see me through the storms of my life I’m going to go to this photograph to remind myself should I ever forget Who is in charge of my days and Who will make a way when the way seems impossible. I’m convinced like never before that God’s pretty much up to handling anything that comes my way, and if you ever doubt God’s ability to see you through, I only have one suggestion. Go to a forest, stand on a log laying over a crystal clear pool near the edge of a waterfall . . . and look up.

Posted in SnapShot Reflections