Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me....
Psalm 23:4a, ESV
Juneau, Alaska, September 2015
"Do you know the sweetness, the security, the strength of 'Thou art with me'? When anticipating the solemn hour of death, when the soul is ready to halt and ask, How shall it then be? can you turn in soul-affection to your God and say, 'There is nothing in death to harm me, while thy love is left to me'? Can you say 'O death, where is thy sting'? It is said, when a bee has left its sting in any one, it has no more power to hurt. Death has left its sting in the humanity of Christ, and has no more power to harm his child. Christ's victory over the grave is his people's. 'At that moment I am with you,' whispers Christ; 'the same arm you have proved strong and faithful all the way up through the wilderness, which has never failed, though you have been often forced to lean on it all your weakness.' 'On this arm,' answers the believer, 'I feel at home; with soul confidence, I repose on my Beloved; for he has supported through so many difficulties, from the contemplation of which I shuddered. He has carried over so many depths, that I know his arm to be the arm of love.' How can that be dark, in which God's child is to have the accomplishment of the longing desire of his life? How can it be dark to come in contact with the light of life? It is 'his rod,' 'his staff,' therefore they 'comfort.' Prove him-prove him now, believer! it is your privilege to do so. It will be precious to him to support your weakness; prove that when weak, then are you strong; that you may be secure, his strength shall be perfected in your perfect weakness. Omnipotent love must fail before one of his sheep can perish for, says Christ, 'none shall pluck my sheep out of my hand.' 'I and my Father are one:' therefore we may boldly say, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.'"
Blogger tells me it's been almost a month since my last post. It has been a maelstrom of a month, full of laughter with young nephews, tears, most especially over the loss of my eldest sister-in-law to cancer, travel, and change in many areas. I still hope and intend to honor Cindy with a blog post of her own, but for now please accept these comments on her favorite passage of Scripture.
For the backstory, please see the post, "Courage, Dear Heart!" This post includes many photos (sorry, not sorry), so e-mail readers may prefer to view the Web version of Fairbanks and Home. Our last day in the last frontier was largely spent in a bus, enjoying the beautiful fall color on the drive north from Denali National Park to Fairbanks.
We drove past a government satellite array important during the Cold War for keeping tabs on our northern Pacific neighbors.
We stopped in Nenana and heard the story of Balto, the most famous of a team of sled dogs who managed to navigate through white-out blizzard conditions to deliver precious cargo of diphtheria medication from Anchorage to Nome. The human drivers couldn't find their way, and no planes could fly, but the dogs saved numerous lives and stopped a potential epidemic.
Nenana hillside cemetery
The odd structure below is transferred to the river surface after it freezes over for the winter. People all around the world compete to guess when the ice will thaw enough for it to fall through. (We didn't attempt that.)
These are reindeer kept by a university agriculture program. If the same animals were wild, not domesticated, they would be called caribou. We're not sure if they're Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, or who. I didn't see any red noses among them, though. ('Tis the season!)
When we arrived in Fairbanks, we explored by foot and ate lunch at a local shop. Along the river we found a pretty plaza with a sculpture commemorating the first people of Alaska and their traditions.
Repacking, weighing our suitcases, resting, and showering consumed the rest of the day. We ate a lovely, hearty dinner before our midnight trip to the airport for the long trip home. We were disappointed that the skies were still too overcast to see the Northern Lights, but the Lord gave us a sweet parting gift after our layover in Seattle.
This is Mount Rainier in early morning, as seen from my window seat. My mathematically minded dad observed that from this same flight altitude, we would still have been looking up at Denali. We returned home that evening to near-100F heat. Due to fatigue and the lateness of the hour, we postponed our reunion with Ebony until the next morning. This journey was the longest he and I have ever been separated since we brought him home. He was beside himself to see us again. (The camera was having trouble focusing with such quick action, but this video makes me happy, so I'm including it anyway.)
In conclusion, dear Crumbles, these are my memorial stones of a great adventure I couldn't have enjoyed without the Lord's power and grace. Is there some hard thing, some God-sized task which you know the Lord is nudging you toward today? If so, I pray that having read the story of His victory for me would give you courage to move forward in faith, giving glory to Him. What He has promised, He is able also to perform (Romans 4:20-21). Where He calls, He enables. Impossibilities are His specialty.
but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21, ESV
My mom, loaded down with her Bible study bag
The guys on their morning hike
Our last excursion of the Alaskan adventure was a guided nature tour on a repurposed schoolbus up into the mountains of Denali National Park to see the local wildlife. We had reserved spots on the 4-hour tour, thinking that by the end of the trip that would be all the time on a schoolbus we could manage. The day before the excursion, however, we learned that our intended tour was canceled due to lack of participants. The cruise line offered to upgrade us to the 8-hour tour instead at no charge. Eight hours on a schoolbus? We discussed it but felt the Lord had rearranged our plans for a reason, so he would give us (and our backs) the stamina for the long drive. Lest you think I exaggerate the character of our transportation, this was our bus:
We had to lower the top windows to get clear shots of anything.
Even if the wildlife had been camera-shy that day, we Texans were pretty excited about snow in September, especially when the temperature was still near 100F back home.
The first animals we saw were a pair of moose. Unfortunately, they were moving so quickly we only had one chance at a photo, and the camera couldn't see the moose in the forest for the trees. (He's the brown blur in the center of the frame. Really, he is.)
The terrain and plants changed, and we stopped for our first break, but the moose were all we had seen. If we had received the tour we had reserved, this would have been the point where we turned around and drove back the way we had come. Instead, we ascended farther into the mountains and soon met the Alaskan state bird, the willow ptarmigan (or alpine chicken).
The snow fell harder, but our driver spotted something large at the top of a hill:
A grizzly bear. Our guide said it was foraging for the last remaining wild blueberries in these scrubby bushes before it turned in for its long winter's nap. It was near enough for us to tell it was a large bear, but not near enough for a good photo through the snow. The next subjects were more cooperative: a whole flock of Dall sheep, named for the scientist who discovered them. These are all ewes and lambs. Even the females of this species have horns.
Our second rest stop, at around the 3-hour mark, proved to be as far up the mountain as the bus could safely go, due to the snow and icy roads farther up. On the way back, we spotted our friend the grizzly again, and this time he was a little closer:
Around the time I handed my camera (and 300mm lens) back to Amore and slid the upper half of my body back through the bus window into the cabin, I remembered the driver's earlier speech about keeping all arms and legs inside the vehicle because wild animals are, well, wild. If you know me well, you will know I must have been really excited about grizzly photos to completely forget a safety rule. Then we saw some male Dall sheep, sharpening their curlicue horns:
Then we saw yet another grizzly! This one was briefly stopped in the road in front of the bus. The driver said we might get some really good shots of it if we were all quiet and didn't move quickly so as to shake the bus. As it turns out, grown-ups aren't any better and keeping still and quiet when excited than a classroom of schoolchildren are. As a consolation prize, we watched the bear cross the river.
The driver told us the pronounced shoulder ridge, clearly visible here, is specific to grizzly bears.
The remainder of the drive was quiet but still lovely in the dimming light. As we walked from the main lodge back to our rooms, it dawned on me that the most interesting wildlife we saw that day appeared on the part of the trip we hadn't planned to take. Sometimes when the Lord asks us to do something we fear may be too hard for us, it just feels hard and we have to trust His Word and character that it will be worth it later on. Sometimes, though, He asks us to do more than we think we can because He wants to give us something better--right then--than what we had wanted for ourselves. I don't know about you, but those occasional immediate, visible rewards encourage me in the waiting and trusting Him for the long-term, invisible rewards. O for grace to trust Him more!
From McKinley Princess Lodge in Talkeetna, we took a double-decker train, the McKinley Explorer, north to Denali National Park. (The President had visited Alaska less than a month before we did, and at that time he officially announced that the name of the mountain would revert from Mount McKinley to the original Native American name, "Denali," or "Great One.")
We rode upstairs in these cars and ate lunch on the lower level.
The conical structure is a beaver lodge.
This is Hurricane Gulch, the most dramatic view we had, since it was too cloudy to see Denali from the train.
Hurricane Gulch again
Eagle's nest
Beaver dam in progress
Completed beaver dam
The highest point of our rail journey, approximately half a mile above sea level
Not in Texas anymore!
Home away from home for two nights
In one of those unexpectedly lovely travel serendipities, we went to the pizza place on the lodge property for supper after checking in and unpacking. It was Sunday evening, and the Dallas Cowboys were playing their season opener against New York back home. We asked a waiter if he minded changing one of the televisions to that channel so we could see the last quarter of the game. (Ironically, if we had actually been in Dallas, the last quarter of a Sunday night game would have been past our bedtime, so we'd have had to record it and watch it the next day.) Romo led the team in one of his signature eleventh-hour comebacks, and the Cowboys won in the final play of the game. It later proved to be the most exhilarating game of the whole season. We were surprised to hear one other family in the restaurant cheering and celebrating, too. It turned out they were from San Antonio, and the common sports allegiance led to a pleasant conversation about places back home. It wasn't a dramatic photo op or an amazing glimpse of wildlife, but it was a sweet little gem of a moment all the same. Coming as it did in the final days of our journey, we welcomed the connection with home and an opportunity to share an experience with our family members there watching the same game at the same time.
