New life...

At the risk of boring any of you, I must revisit a topic that continues to pique my interest these days. I seem to continually be drawn to those things that remind me of new life, of surviving the odds, of resurrection, if you will. Perhaps it is because that topic is so fresh in my memory in my own history. But for whatever reason, I am both fascinated and emotionalized (I just created that new word just for this occasion) at the same time.

Last Saturday was our wedding anniversary. Yes, it's been 2 years. To celebrate this milestone in our lives, Eric and I decided to take a little day trip. Neither of us had ever visited the visitor centers approaching Mount St. Helens in Washington; we both wish we had taken advantage of seeing this wonder closer to the time of its historic eruption in 1980. But we were kids then (ok, maybe we were young adults)...and we just didn't make the effort back then.

The day was beautiful. Disappointingly, the clouds hovered over the top of the mountain all day, literally clouding the view of the top of the cone. However, the flip-side good news was that the overcast day created a spectacle of color and beauty in God's creation. The greens were really green; the flowers were intense in their hues...
















...and it was so wonderful to just wander and drive and take pics. Of course, the most meaningful moments for me were any of the encounters with wildlife...















As you get closer to the mountain, though, you eventually pass into the "blast zone." This is the area that was most affected by this horrific act of nature.

This brings me to the crux of my story...

The destruction and horror surrounding the events of May 18, 1980, are almost unspeakable. Many lives were lost, and the landscape surrounding the mountain was obliterated. Even today, you can see the deep gouges and cracks in the earth resulting from the flow from the mountain's crater.
















In the midst of all the death and loss, one might think that replanting might have been an immediate goal...let's get that forest back to the way it was, as soon as we can...but it was interesting to me that the US Forest Service has chosen to let nature take its course in much of the area; to watch how the landscape recovers from this ordeal.

Some plants with strong, hardy root systems were able to push up through the ground again. Those animals and fish that live underground or underwater were likewise survivors. They all experienced the trauma, but somehow new life came to be.

Along the road, on our way up to the mountain, my eye was caught by a tree. New life again flashed across my mind-journal...
















Saturday was a day of quiet reflectiveness for me. And as I witnessed the renewal and new growth around me, I was again aware of the firestorm in my life a few years back. I was there, in the midst of it...and in many ways I experienced near-death. But God offers newness, survival, resurrection, mercy, growth, healing...new life...

Perhaps a display at one of the visitor's centers said it best...