My husband, Paul, and I just returned from a 35-day road trip through British Columbia and the Yukon of Canada to Alaska and back. The wonders of God’s creation were always before us… but so were little “lessons for life.”
Sometimes, a gal just needs “time out” from resisting the darkness of the world to be renewed by the Creator of light and life.
What is the value of one human life? Up in the Klondike of the Yukon, a gold dredge eight stories high running 24/7 that cost $25 million (today’s dollar) and brought in $75,000/day in gold (today’s dollar) was shut down for three days in order to find the body of a man caught in the conveyor and buried in the tailings.
For two days, we were aboard the Matanuska Ferry that carried us (and our car) from Haines, Alaska, to Prince Rupert, B.C. The views were breathtaking, but most encouraging and hopeful was the father and his daughter sitting next to us at dinner who bowed their heads and began their meal with “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest… .”
Look at this couple. Do we appear dangerous? A threat to society? At 2:30 a.m., after driving off the Matanuska ferry and showing our passports at Prince Rupert, B.C., customs, we were pulled out of the line and asked to exit our car while it was searched. Eventually (and with a smile), the border patrol guard gave us permission to proceed. After 3:00 a.m., we were driving the streets in rain and fog hoping to locate our hotel when a fine officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police turned on his lights and pulled us over for “weaving across the yellow line.” When he realized that we had not “been drinking,” but were strangers in a foreign land just off the ferry and seeking safe haven, he graciously gave us directions (with a smile). The words of Ezekiel 34:12 are comforting: “As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire . . .” After crossing the border between British Columbia and Washington, we drove in dense smoke; in fact, the forest ground along our highway was still smoldering and I saw flames consuming a fallen tree. The acrid smell permeated our car and clothing. Here and there, it was evident that firefighters, national guardsmen, and neighbors joined to save a house from untamed and restless tongues of fire. Our tongues are too often untamed and restless. With our tongues, “we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the image of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not be so . . .” (James 3:5,10). Instead, like the grapevines that we saw persevering even as fires raged all around, may we bear the good fruit of mercy, patience and kindness.
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