The Phil Files

For the past several days, Donna and I have been enjoying the spectacular beauty of the northwestern U.S. Most of our time has been spent in the Portland area. The weather has been wonderful — it always has been when I’ve been up here, so I accuse everyone of fibbing about the weather to keep folks from all moving to the states of Washington and Oregon. We’ve had an incredible blessing of being with Matt and Laura Corbin, old and new friends from our college days.

Today was one of those days you can’t really wrap your mind around. After a special time of communion with friends, we spent the day in wildly different places. We drove down highway 84 alongside the Columbia River — just south of Hood River, Oregon, you can see the spectacluar Mt. Hood to the South and towering Mt. Adams to the north — and then drove up into Washington to peer into the crater of Mount St. Helens. On the high road north and west of the mountain, you could see and smell the smoke from the mountain as you looked at the still near lunar landscape near the foot of the mountain. Donna even got several bits of ash in her hair. Yet despite all that the awful blast had done to stamp out life, life has returned and a little bit at a time has returned to bring the jillion hues of green to the stark drab gray of ash and mud.

Then we headed south across the columbia again and then turned west over the mountain range that brought us to the Pacific Coast of Oregon. To end this day, we watched the sun set like a bright orange ball into the pacific with the jagging near skeleton-like spines of old ranges extending into the surf. These ranges, broken and re-shapen by the wind and waves and battered by the raging storms are another testimony to the absolute beauty that can come from broken things. No camera could do justice to the squawking of gulls, the rhythmic crash of the the mild surf, the fiery glow of sunset fiery whisps of clouds, the smell of northwest pine in the air, the unexpected blow of surfacing whales, and the company of my precious wife, Donna, as we shared this moment on mother’s day.

God majors in fixing, mending, and restoring broken things and broken people. When we break bread on Sunday and remember Jesus, who allowed himself to pierced by thorns, nails, spears, and mocking cries we remember. We remember him. We remember his love. We remember his death. But we do all this remembering on the day of his resurrection. So we remember most clearly that because of his death and resurrection, nothing that is God’s remains broken forever.

So to you dear Father, I offer this image, and this promise.