A few years ago, a major forest fire swept through Kootenay National Park in the Rocky Mountains. The fire consumed over twenty thousand acres of forest, leaving behind mile after mile of statue-straight charred, gray, dead tree trunks.
The stillness there is consuming; the gray unending as the path of the fire scorched first one side of the highway and then fiercely, leaping over towering pines and two lanes of asphalt, claimed the other side with it's deadly blaze.
A fantastical scene of foreboding and destruction, the passersby have their gaze forced ever upward, waves of awe and sorrow groaning their message of loss. Row upon row upon row of once mighty trees have been reduced to branded sticks ~ fire-scarred spears weakly stabbing at hovering clouds.
Bordering this devastation, carefully, proudly standing their ground as the miles of roadway stretch on, is a rarely-broken row of healthy, green and growing evergreens. In areas where the fire surged from one side of the highway to the other, that row of pines did not light, did not fall. A bright, living contrast to the menacing lifelessness behind, their unsinged girth testifies to what once was; to what will come again.
They are not newly planted. They saw the fire and lived to tell. I wonder what spared that so long stand of trees? Were they saturated in lifesaving water, showered by hard working fire fighters? Were they spared by tricks of wind and weather?
Those lively remnants of once lush mountainsides lend their voice to hope, to promise. Death may have it's way for a time, but life will come again. Devastation may work it's horror for now, but set your gaze on the hope still at hand. Life will find a way. Fresh starts and new growth will, before long, sweep those passes and plateau's with new green, new branches, new heights.
The stillness there is consuming; the gray unending as the path of the fire scorched first one side of the highway and then fiercely, leaping over towering pines and two lanes of asphalt, claimed the other side with it's deadly blaze.
A fantastical scene of foreboding and destruction, the passersby have their gaze forced ever upward, waves of awe and sorrow groaning their message of loss. Row upon row upon row of once mighty trees have been reduced to branded sticks ~ fire-scarred spears weakly stabbing at hovering clouds.
Bordering this devastation, carefully, proudly standing their ground as the miles of roadway stretch on, is a rarely-broken row of healthy, green and growing evergreens. In areas where the fire surged from one side of the highway to the other, that row of pines did not light, did not fall. A bright, living contrast to the menacing lifelessness behind, their unsinged girth testifies to what once was; to what will come again.
They are not newly planted. They saw the fire and lived to tell. I wonder what spared that so long stand of trees? Were they saturated in lifesaving water, showered by hard working fire fighters? Were they spared by tricks of wind and weather?
Those lively remnants of once lush mountainsides lend their voice to hope, to promise. Death may have it's way for a time, but life will come again. Devastation may work it's horror for now, but set your gaze on the hope still at hand. Life will find a way. Fresh starts and new growth will, before long, sweep those passes and plateau's with new green, new branches, new heights.
~ 1 Peter 1: 3 - 2:12 ~
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