Glimpses of Eden

I know it is possible to hear God and find Him anywhere, but I seem to hear and see Him more clearly when surrounded by nature, especially knock your socks off gorgeous nature. I am in Hilton Head for a week with my family, and it may be the most beautiful place on earth. Every morning, I go out all alone on my kayak to the Broad Creek ocean inlet. I commune with many dolphins, who never pose long enough for a single photograph. The scads of heron are much more amenable to photo opps. The are so unafraid that I approach within a foot of them and they just continue fishing. The oyster encrusted shoals seem to be a favorite place for the sea creatures. I float in the shallow water and thank God for the wonder of His creation, and ask forgiveness for the many times of ingratitude when I am not awestruck by the palette He has placed in my hands.

Nearly each day, thunderstorms have cropped up and I can never stay out as long as I would like, but perhaps that is a good thing. Otherwise, I might never leave the kayak. Yesterday, I saw something I have never seen before. I saw a pod of dolphin use their tails to thrash schools of fish into shallow water, and then they gobbled them up. I tried to get a video of it, but alas, the grey dolphins blended with the grey water and it just looked like waves. I had just read the day before that dolphins do this quite commonly at low tide. However, in the fifteen years that we have come to Hilton Head, I had never seen this spectacle before.

How blessed I am! I don't know exactly what my parents did right, but they raised all of their children to love nature. I am never quite so happy as when I am alone in the midst of beautiful nature. I feel like I could be perfect, exactly as God would have me be, as long as I am all alone in my kayak, trailing the fin of a dolphin.

Of course, within moments of returning to people and real life, I know I could never be perfect, not even close. But I am grateful to God for those moments when I can almost see the Garden of Eden and feel life is what it was meant to be before it went so far awry.

Deuteronomy 8:7-10 NIV
[7] For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land---a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; [8] a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; [9] a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. [10] When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.




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