Truths Remembered

From a young age, I have had a love / hate / love relationship with keeping a journal . . . one you actually write in. Journals are so enticing with their beautiful covers and lined pages just waiting to be filled with a person’s life! When I step inside Barnes and Noble, a giant magnet snatches me to the journals in the stationery section . . . come look . . . hold . . . daring me to write.

After nearly 50 years of typing, my handwriting is ugly, to say the least. Handwriting seems archaic, a lost art. So why don’t I journal on my computer, you ask? Good question. Maybe the answer for both a paper journal and journaling on my computer is I don’t want to give “voice” to my thoughts and feelings. But in reality, this blog, “Reflections,” is a journal . . . about who God is to me and what He is speaking to me.

With that in mind, I’d like to share some reflections about the Great Sahara Desert and me and God.

Looking out the window of the airplane during our February 2011 flight to Kenya, all I saw for hours was the nothingness of sand, sand, and more sand! Until I saw a black line in the dessert. A river! Soon, another black line . . . a wide black line . . . the Nile River . . . winding through the Great Sahara. As we neared the southern edge of the Great Sahara, the sand gave way to farm fields and larger communities, then to tropical growth.

It takes several hours to fly over the Sahara, giving me plenty of time to wonder . . . what keeps the Nile River from being totally consumed by the hot and thirsty desert? The Nile's source is greater than itself, Lake Victoria. It also pours into something greater than itself, the Mediterranean Sea!

I saw communities here and there along the banks of the Nile and the green of trees and grass . . . proof that life and hope exist even in the desert! I think to myself as we fly over, stay close to the source, trees and grass and people, or you will be consumed!

Second, I wondered . . . why do rivers travel like a snake instead of a straight path? Obstacles! Every river has obstacles in its path, trying to stop the river from reaching its destiny! But the river just goes around, over, or through the obstacle. Resistance is futile!

2011 was a year-long desert season in my life. What got me through it? Truths remembered while 37,000 feet in the air, looking through a small window at the Great Sahara . . .

5. There is life and hope in the desert if I stay connected to my source: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

4. Nothing & no one can stop me from fulfilling God’s plan & purpose for my life except me.

3. The Holy Spirit, like the wind and river, carves a path to follow.

2. The desert season gives way to growth, spiritual growth!

1. God is greater than any desert, even the Great Sahara!