I took this picture on the 27th of March on Santa Rosa Beach... I had been out for a drive and decided to stop and walk the beach... a funny thing happened that day... and on another day when Denise and I had been walking the beach and watching the sunset... a bit of an Epiphany... If you look on my photo albums on FaceBook, you will see LOTS of sunset pictures... and most of them are on the water... I have been taking these pictures since early 2009... so what is the Epiphany? For over a year I would go to the beach... at sunset or at night... listen to the waves crashing onto the shore... and searching... being in a very dark place in my life, it seemed as though I was returning to the beach to find something I had lost...
In October of 1980, I had gone to Putnam Park on the Campus of the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire for a similar reason... flunking out of my major (Accounting)... wondering what I was going to do... the Chippewa River seemed to call out to me... to carry me away... or to help me wash clean... my choice... I chose to listen... and in that listening, God called... And now, 29 years later, I was on the shore of a different body of water... searching, it seemed for something... wondering... at a major transition point in my life... and just as lost, if not more so... storm clouds were raging and the lightning and thunder and torrential rains were very real and very destructive...
Once again, God called... or should I say, re-called... re-claimed this broken and sinful man... tired and burned out... wandering about in a self-made darkness... As Michael W. Smith sings in his song, "Healing Rain"...
Healing rain is coming down
It's coming closer to the lost and found.
Tears of joy and tears of shame
Are washed forever in Jesus' name.
I had been taking pictures of sunsets... going to the water... searching for something... wondering if I was going to survive the impending darkness of a night of my own making... soul parched and dying... only to be renewed... thank GOD!
Now, instead of going to the beach or to the water seeking... I go to be reminded... reminded of God's goodness... of God's mercy... of God's forgiveness... of God's healing... and when the rain falls, it is a healing rain...
This is Holy Week... a week to remember the extent to which Jesus went for you and for me... for a frail, fragile, and sinful people... the depth of his sacrificial love... the amazing nature of his servant's heart...
As I look out my window at Circle Lake here in DeFuniak Springs, I see the lake... I also see clouds gathering... it is supposed to rain... supposed to storm tomorrow... and yet I am not searching... I am comforted by the thought that once I was lost; now I am found... blind, but now I see... a peace settles in my heart as I think of where God has planted me...
May all who are searching this Holy season find that peace... as we will gather around the Table of the Lord's Supper... share the cup and the bread... He welcomes you... He calls you... Come... I'll gladly slide my chair over to make room... there is always room for one more at His table...
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