Enjoying God's Creation!

I don’t know where you live, but where I live it is a day to enjoy the beauty that God has created.  I’ve watched the national weather reports over the past few months; so if you live anywhere from Texas to New York (roughly), I’m sorry – you’re probably not sharing my joy today!  It seems you have had a ridiculously cold, wet, and stormy winter and spring.  But I can’t help but mention that it is between 70 and 75 degrees here today, sunny and beautiful!

We who live in western Washington get a bad rap from the rest of the country sometimes.  People who don’t live here seem to think that it rains all the time.  To be fair, we do get a lot of rain; but we don’t get a lot of storms.  Our rain comes mostly lightly and stays for longer periods of time.  Gray is one of our most pronounced colors during several months of the year.

Maybe that’s what makes a day like today so great.  Because of the gray and rain, when the sun shines here it is amazingly beautiful – every shade of green imaginable is reflected in our trees and plants, as well as pinks, purples, yellows, and other colors in the spring flowers that are blooming.  God is SO creative!

If I drive a couple miles from my house in either direction on our freeway, I get the opportunity to see a stunning view of the tallest mountain in our state (Mt. Rainier, over 14,000 feet) – part of the Cascade range – covered still in snow and breathtaking.  If I want to drive to the downtown area of the city I live in, I get to see the beautiful waters of Puget Sound with a backdrop of the Olympic Mountains.  If I want to just sit at home, I can wait for the gorgeous sunset I will get to see tonight over the Black Hills out my back window.  (Or wait around after that for a glimpse of the moon!)

Fall has always been my favorite time of year, but spring runs a close second.  Watching every color of the rainbow burst forth on the trees and plants is amazing!  Every time I drive somewhere, something has changed during this time of year.  I’m not a hot weather fan – spring sunny days in western Washington are the perfect temperature for me.

If you don’t live where I do, I hope you’re not too jealous of me right now!  I’ve been a lot of other places; so I know that, while not every place has the same beauty, there is something beautiful about God’s creation no matter where it is.  I hope today you will take a few minutes to look around you when you’re driving somewhere and to thank God for the incredible gifts of beauty he has created for us to enjoy.  Time for me to take a walk . . .     

Choosing God's Redemption In Our Losses

Loss hurts.  It always does.  That’s because loss is often something we don’t expect, and it requires adjustments on our part.  When we face losses, it is a challenge to find a way to move from feeding the negative results of loss in our lives to focusing on the positive things God can do in us through the loss. 

Today I’m thinking about some of the people at the church I used to attend.  Over the weekend, the church’s active and experienced hiking group was kayaking in Puget Sound near the shores of the Olympic Peninsula and suddenly faced a bad storm.  Two of the members of the group perished and another is in critical condition in the hospital.  In just a few minutes of time, a fun outing on a beautiful day turned into an experience of great loss.  What are the survivors and the rest of the church supposed to do now as they try to cope?

In the midst of a series of losses in my own life, God reminded me through his Word that we always have a choice how we respond:

“Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!  I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!  The Sovereign Lord is my strength!  He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights.”

                                                                   Habakkuk 3:17-19

I don’t want to sound trite in the face of the loss of physical life that my fellow Christians are facing today.  But these verses show us that we can choose to focus on the loss, or we can choose to praise God in spite of the loss.  We can let our feelings be controlled by what has happened to us, or we can let faith in God override our natural inclination to negative thinking.  By fixing our eyes on God instead of the loss, we are able to make the choice to praise regardless of what has happened to us.  Not because of what has happened, but in spite of what we’ve lost.

And as we get further away from the immediate experience of loss, we will find other reasons to praise when we begin to see God’s redemption of our losses.  What I mean by this is that our brokenness now can be used by God in the future to bring him glory and affect others in a positive way.  This is where God’s formulas don’t necessarily match up with ours: often our ability to be used by God after loss is not in spite of the loss but actually because of the loss.  My stories of God’s work in my life through loss are some of my most important stories because he has infused my losses with his power to help others.

Praying for healing and for the responses of everyone involved in this latest incident of loss – and for God’s redemption of this loss in the future as the survivors choose to be used by God for his glory . . .