Over the weekend we spent a substantial period of time on or around the water. I've already blogged on the beach volleyball at Muskegon. We then spent Sunday afternoon having a picnic at Sue and Dale Sullivan's house on a dammed river up at Newaygo, where both Owain and Ciaran had a go at driving/piloting (not sure what the correct term is) a speedboat belonging to David McKellar, another member of the congregation. For those alarmed at such an idea, fear not, Owain managed to end the day without any additional broken limbs or accidents of any kind, indeed was really very good at it... It was has father who nearly broke his knee and cracked a rib trying to get himself and Ciaran on to an inflatable. Never did manage it for any length of time, but everyone had a good laugh watching me try, so it wasn't entirely wasted.
On late Monday afternoon another church family, Chris, Connie and Patrick Avison, took us to the beach at Grand Haven, and we had another lovely evening, playing in the water, lazing on the beach, having a barbeque (its amazing... unlike in Northern Ireland, when you bring out a barbeque grill it doesn't automatically rain!!!) and dandering along the pier. Yet another example of the gracious welcome that we have received from the people of Faith UMC.
But let me share with you our first reaction on seeing Lake Michigan on Saturday. As we rounded the bend on Beach Street, Muskegon, as one Sally and I said:
"
"
For once in our lives we were rendered speechless. In front of us was a huge tract of water, with an horizon unbroken by any other land mass. To get a vista like that in Ireland we would need to drive across the island to Donegal and look across the Atlantic Ocean.
Lake Michigan is HUGE. You could drop Ireland into the middle of it and it wouldn't touch the sides!!! Yet it is a lake. It is so hard for this little-islander to get his head round.
Then when you go for a swim in it, it isn't salty... It doesn't buoy you up the way that sea-water does, but it doesn't dessicate you either. It's just weird!
But, preacher as I am, as I was looking at this seemingly limitless lake, I knew that somewhere on it there was another shore. That this, compared with the vastness of Lake Superior or the Pacific ocean was small. But that even they, in comparison with the incomprehensible dimensions of God's love, are mere boating ponds. And that if we surrender ourselves to that love, it will always buoy us up.
As Paul Prays for the Ephesian Church so I say:
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family [a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3: 14-19
Shalom
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