Tip of My Iceberg

I just wanted to go to the mountains.

We’ve been in Colorado for over a month and had yet to make it to Rocky Mountain National Park. Work was hectic, deadlines were looming.

Saturday dawned with the sun promising to abdicate to rain clouds. Rain wasn’t going to discourage us from going. It might make the time messier, a bit more uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.

We finally gathered everyone who was to go. Three of our number stayed back: one who had to work, one who had too much work to catch up on, one who was fighting a stomach bug.

It made it more complicated.

When we reached the entrance to the park, the lines were twenty cars deep, and we had to wait to get in. Another inconvenience. It was now way past lunchtime, the littles were getting rambunctious, and all we had to eat was junk food.

We’d never planned on it being that long.

When we entered, we immediately lost one another. Separated into three cars, there was no cell service, and several cars had snuck between us, splitting us up.

We hoped everyone would head to Bear Lake.

The parking lot was full. Our car was turned away, told to go back four miles and try to find a place to park further down the mountain.

The kids were miserable. We had no food with us–it was all in the other cars.

We debated leaving.

The miracle was we ended up in the same park-and-ride area. We took the bus together back to Bear Lake, feeding the kids bits of junk food to get them through the hike.

The sky darkened as we headed up the trail. I had a 25-pound backpack with arms and legs kicking and waving as we walked. I agreed to wear him to Alberta Falls; his mom would wear him back. She had charge of the constant motion machine which was her daughter.

Words can’t describe the beauty of the hike, the boldness of the rain clouds, the depth of color of all the flora we passed. The falls themselves were magnificent, pounding over the rocks, furiously throwing spray.

I could have stayed for hours.

The rain began.

It was literally downhill from there.

We caught the bus back to the park-and-drive area. We all sat in the back–and right before we arrived, one of the littles began to vomit.

Continuously.

Believing it might be altitude sickness, we headed home.

Four more bouts of vomit. I leaned over the seat trying to catch what came out in a paper bag.

How often in life do I feel disrupted? Where my expectations are not met, and I’m confronted with disappointment?

A lot.

The  beautiful moment happened–the magnificence of the mountains. A dramatic sky framed by waving trees. It made the trip and all its mess worth it.

Life will be disrupted. Constantly. We live in an imperfect world.

God reminds us that He’s the One who created all things. We live at His pleasure.

We will live with disappointment.

We need to look for the beauty that is God. It is there. Waiting to be found.

Beauty is in the eyes of those who choose to see.