Last week I had the amazing opportunity to visit Glacier National Park, Montana and even a day to venture through the beautiful wilderness into Alberta, Canada. Words really cannot describe the beauty of the mountains, trees, fresh air, sunrises & sunsets, and wildlife roaming free. If it's not yet on your bucket list, I highly recommend adding it! (Thankfully our only bear sightings were safe from a vehicle!) The friendly and helpful National Park staff (let's keep advocating to save their jobs...) taught us that the stunningly beautiful turquoise blue water of the rivers and lakes in the area is created from the glacial powder. The lakes themselves were carved by glaciers centuries ago and the cold, clear waters are the result of lack of plankton growth -- as the glacial water is evidently too cold for plankton (but not for my 7-year-old!). The glacial flour of fine rock particles created by the ice grinding against the mountain rocks suspend in the water, scattering the sunlight.
This got me to thinking... there's really no way to describe our personal or communal encounters with God. We of course try with beautiful songs and poems and and prayers, but sometimes there are sighs too deep for words. And the metaphor runs deep like these Rocky Mountain rivers busting out of the mountainside as cold, rushing waterfalls: encounters with God change us, purify us, and the impact, though sometimes as small as grains of glacial flour, make our lives beautiful as we reflect light (life) differently than before. Just being around a gorgeous glacier lake changes your entire perspective -- hypothetically giving you more patience with whining children who cannot bear to hike another mile and are beside themselves with no WiFi for the week! In our world full of tension, worries, and suffering these days, I think we could all use a little more patience, beauty, and encounters with God (and nature) that are sometimes impossible to describe, but life-changing to experience.
"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." - Psalm 42:7
"Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place; he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth. The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope." - Micah 1:3-4
Grace & Peace,
Susan