9/16/10
Yesterday my sister and I went on an incredible beautiful gorilla hike up a mountain with an inactive volcano. It was lush, scenic, covered in large ferns and bamboo forests. Half way up the mountain we came up on a gorilla family and were able to spend one hour watching these incredible, almost instinct animals. A day spent just in nature, experiencing the ache of memories of the past; the quietness and beauty of the bush.
I’m in Rwanda, the “country of 1000 hills”. The country is small with one hill/mountain after another popping up into view. They are steep and have gardens and houses on almost every square foot of land. To the naked eye, the ground appears so unstable that a good rain would wash every house and plant into the valley.
Memories of Costa Rica come to mind. When the earthquakes would violently shake the ground, pictures would fall of the walls and dishes crash to the ground. Even so, my house was built to withstand these quakes and the house remained intact.
Sometimes I feel life is like an earthquake. The ground underneath me is shaking, and constantly changing. I move. I make friends. I move again. I leave behind those friends. My children are growing up and moving on. I have to find my place in life all over again. I am not longer a stranger living in a foreign land, but a stranger living in my own country. At times the ground beneath me is shaking so suddenly that I almost lose my balance and fall.
But I don’t, because I have built my life on the solid Rock. And there is no rock like my God. Sometimes I think I am falling but when the ground stops shaking, I am always left standing.
If someone were to ask me to define God I would say He is my sure foundation, the ground that never moves. Life changes. I lose my security. My friends, family and even my church may fail me. But Jesus never fails. He never changes. That is all I have to cling to.
We moved to Changuinola, Panama just after the earthquake of April 22, 1991. I heard the story of a mother and her two children. When the earthquake occurred, the ground opened up beneath the feet of her children and they fell in. She managed to pull one child to safety. But as she was reaching for the hand of her second child, the ground shifted again and the earth swallowed up her child.
I won’t be swallowed up! I am building my house on the solid rock. God will have victory through my fragility and my weakness, through my insecurities and search to find myself.
I love 1 Cor. 15:54 “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? But thanks be to God. He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Even though one day the earth will cover my earthly body, I have victory. There is no Rock like my God!
