In my last post I didn’t tell you that when we came back to town from camping with the grand girls and Hillary, we just left our camper there so we could go back up. We left on Tuesday with the intent of staying a week. On Thursday, two friends came up (love you, Branda and Dave!) to spend the night and do some exploring. It rained or threatened rain most of the time they were there – but we managed to have fun doing Bible study, playing triominoes and eating. They left Friday about noon and the sun came out an hour later. For a couple of hours. The rain returned and that evening we found ourselves sitting around the campfire, wrapped in blankets and feeling cold. I checked the temp using our truck gauge and it read 44 degrees. Yikes. We ended up coming home a couple of days early, but we weren’t discouraged or upset about the rain-out. About 30 miles south of us the Beaver Creek forest fire has been raging through all the beetle-killed trees. The rain is a God-send to the over 300 firefighters who are trying to fight it. We were happy to see much less smoke as we drove home.
In the few clear hours, with a combination of our four-wheelers and hiking, Karl and I did make it up to the top of Bridger Peak. One of my most treasured places on earth. The trip wasn’t easy, and we were exhausted from winching our ATVs out of the snow by the time we got back to camp, but it was certainly worth the effort. On the Peak, the wind was gentle and warm. The sky was clear blue. We sat on the rocks that adorn the Peak, surrounded by a 360 degree vista that is beyond compare, watching chipmunks play nearby while bright blue birds played with the air currents. Thanks, God, for a hint of heaven.
The panorama is truly unfathomable for the depth of its beauty. I could sit for hours just staring out. Hey, I have sat for hours on Bridger Peak just gaping. Something else struck me, though, on this trip. Perhaps because we’d been cold and damp, or maybe because it had been so difficult to finally get up there, but I noticed that right beside me as I sat on the rocks was a columbine plant. Blooming. At 11,000 feet and snow all around. Blooming. Delicate. Colorful. It was blooming! How can that happen when the temperature and wind are brutal and unwelcoming. How can that happen when it is just so hard up there?
The lesson here is obvious. I have a God who loves me, salvation that can’t be taken away from me, a husband who is also my best friend. I am healthy, I have enough food to eat and money enough. But yet I complain. I find excuses for why I don’t accomplish what I set out to, or what I need to. I blame lots of failures or false starts on this or that. Gees. That columbine is growing out of rocks in a totally inhospitable place. It’s not making excuses. IT IS BLOOMING!
Enough said. Lord, let me be like a columbine!
