Hope and Trust

This morning we packed up all our camping gear and ‘broke camp’ up in the mountains for the last time this summer.  I feel a little sad, we’ve had such fun exploring the nooks and crannys in the Sierra Madres. I will admit, I’m a bit tired of being dirty and dusty from riding, and I am looking forward to being where I have a phone and internet signal all the time, but still, I will miss the splendor and peace and awe-factor that living in the mountains I love so much have provided in the last three months.  I’m ready to move on and work our way across the US back to Virginia where we will leave our rig and fly home to St. Croix.  I pray that we get to come back next year and explore more.

One thing that has impressed me this summer – thanks to the eclipse and the stars, deer, elk, moose and foxes, watching a tornado scoop down and then back up, and a number of incredible sunsets – is the power of nature, and the God who set it in motion.  I love the power of nature. Yet.  It scares me as well.    I love God’s love for me as well. Yet.  That scares me, too.  I don’t always understand His love.  I don’t always understand the ways he answers prayer.

I’m certain that lots and lots of people who love the Lord were crying out to Him to stop the rain from falling in Houston.  But it continued to rain.  Now there’s Hurricane Irma bearing down on St. Croix.  It is  supposed to hit this afternoon, at our house while we are thousands of miles away.  I’ve been assured by neighbors and friends that our house is buttoned up tight and I know that we left it pretty much ready for a hurricane.  I know that the house and all that is in it is ‘just stuff’.  I also know that I’ve been praying for that house and that stuff, and for all our friends and all those who we don’t even know on our island and on the other islands in Irma’s path.  I know that God is near.  I trust God.  But.  I’ll spend today, as we drive up to northern Wyoming, praying.  Praying for safety for St. Croix.  Praying for the storm to calm or go north where it will not do harm.  I will also be praying for peace inside me, and for the trust I so dearly want to hold on to.  God is powerful enough to create a world full of wonders, and He’s loving enough to make choices for us that will grow us and bring us closer to Him, even if we don’t understand the methods.