I recently took a trip to my now
favorite spiritual retreat location at a place called “Corhaven” in the Shenandoah
Valley in Virginia. Growing up in the Bible
belt and smack in the middle of Christian camp central, I’ve been on many
retreats in my day but this one was different.
About a year ago, I took my first trip to Corhaven and arrived with much
anxiety. It was shortly after the birth of my second baby and I felt like it
was a bad time to spend the day away. I
also knew that at the retreat we were to spend the afternoon in silence. Yes, silence.
With a newborn and a 2 year old, I
had not experienced silence in a very long time. And the thought of it actually made me
nervous. What would I do with myself for 3 hours? What would I think
about? I knew it was meant to be a time
to commune with God…talk to Him, listen to Him, experience Him. I was nervous what God might say or what I
would say to him. But since my husband
had my bag packed at the door that morning (I guess he knew something I
didn’t), I took a deep breath and started my drive out to the Shenandoah’s.
It was a beautiful day and the
morning was great, led by the Rev. Bill Haley who gave us direction and things
to think about in how to be in God’s presence.
I was still nervous about the afternoon but I decided to just relax and
try and enjoy the time of quiet.
Corhaven is a beautiful little spot with a warm farmhouse, abundance of
trees, walking paths, clucking chickens, and a creek. As I began my walk through the woods, I asked
God to open my mind and spirit to what He had to show me.
As I was walking, I noticed all the
many different types of trees and different types of leaves. Not that this was something new that I had
never seen before but I thought to myself, “Wow, there are so many different
ones…different colors, different shapes, different sizes.” I considered how specific our God is in His
creation. My mind was immediately taken
to the specific characteristics of both my children. I remember vividly when my first child was
given to me after he was born that he had this perfect little swirl of a
cowlick on the top of his head. I love,
love, love, his little swirl. And now he is older and I thoroughly enjoy
combing it so it is plain sight. I
thought of my newest baby and his pouty lips, his birthmark on his leg…so many
details, so much thought put into their creation.
David’s
Psalm came to mind, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made…my frame was not
hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your
book were written, every one of the them, the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.” (Ps. 139: 14, 15b, 16) It is overwhelming
to think of God the Creator being mindful of us. But yet, He is mindful in a very specific and
meticulous way.
Although, I
have had the privilege to grow up always being taught that God loves me, this
experience was particularly powerful to me.
His love is specific. He love is too deep and too numerous to
measure. It is beyond my
comprehension. In a New York Times
article a few years ago it described the difficulty to keep count of the many species
on the earth and how new ones are cropping up each year. “Each
year, researchers report more than 15,000 new species, and their workload shows
no sign of letting up. ‘Ask any taxonomist in a museum, and they’ll tell you
they have hundreds of species waiting to be described,’ says Camilo Mora, a
marine ecologist at the University of Hawaii….They estimate there are 8.7
million species on the planet, plus or minus 1.3 million.” Astounding that God is still creating and we are unable to keep up!
“When I consider your
heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the
stars,
which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are
mindful of them,
human beings that you care
for them? You have made them a little
lower than the angels and crowned them with glory
and honor.” Psalm 8:3-5
