Glory 13 - Tree and Cave

Kaitlin Curtice wrote this morning of a “cave” that was created in one of her elementary classes that served as a healing place during a difficult period of her life. She described it so beautifully of child-made stalagmites and stalactites and paper and of the hours of work that went into them transforming their ordinary classroom into a place where their imaginations moved into reality and a cave emerged. She spoke of how that process and place became a refuge for her in a turbulent time of life and how that idea continued to stay with her to now.

Maybe the cave in fourth grade taught me about finding a home in those unexpected places, about finding sanctuary in natural blessings, with the sunlight and the moonlight, with the loud and the quiet.

As I read her words, I went back to Elijah’s experience in the cave in 1 Kings 19. Elijah is fleeing for his life and runs to the wilderness believing it was the place he would die. Instead it became the place where he met the Lord first under a solitary broom tree and then in a cave. The Lord provided for him and met him and led him from that place, including speaking to Elijah in the deepest of silences.

I imagine the tree was something like this - out in the wilderness with seemingly nothing else in sight. And there the Lord met Elijah.

I am grateful for the spaces where I have been able to hear the voice of the Lord this weekend - wilderness and mountain spaces, times of solitude and community, time with my parents and with old friends, meals and drinks. And it is time to return from that space to where the Lord has called me - a husband and a father and a disciple listening to where the Lord will lead next.