Skip to main content

Lake Junaluska—You are Awesome in This Place, Mighty God!

Image
By








swesdome


Wisdom is the compass by which man is to steer 
across the trackless waste of life; 
without it he is a derelict vessel, 
the sport of winds and waves. 

 Charles Haddon Spurgeon


 Amazing the view from one side of Lake Junaluska to the other, that is at nine o'clock in the morning. At seven, you could scarcely see the wood planked footbridge and the mountains were nowhere to be found. The fog was thick as pea soup in London on a good day. You could hear the ducks on the lake, but you couldn't see them, the Canadian geese dared not attempt their early morning practice run, and the swans were still wrapped in their own wings until wake-up call—at the lifting of the fog. In essence, Junaluska, early of a morning is the epitome of the poem, like the life of man without wisdom—trackless waste. No compass could intervene. Except for the tops of our tennis shoes, we might as well have been blind and if we had tried this on tempestuous seas, we would have been a derelict vessel, the sport of winds and waves.

 But notice the calmness, the mountains rising in the distance, and the beauty of the pink roses that bejeweled the path around the Lake, just two hours later. Someone once said, "what a difference a day makes." Actually, what a difference two hours makes. When you cannot see two feet in front of you, the view is hopeless until the brilliance of the sun burns off the barrier to light.

 There's something extraordinarily soothing about the two-mile hike around the beautiful assembly campus of the Methodists, which has been there for years on end, since the early 1900's.The camp is named for nearby Mount Junaluska, which was named for the Junaluska Indians but is now called North Eaglenest Mountain. So, in a round-about way, Lake Junaluska is named for the Indian tribe, I'm sure a proud heritage. 

It's a little over two miles around the lake, takes about thirty or forty minutes, just the right amount of time to ponder our Creator God's handiwork in this little spot of America the Beautiful. I couldn't help but wonder if all these residents of Junaluska really understand how greatly they are blessed, some of them situated high in the hills surrounding the lake with a view of everything, the water, the mountains close, the mountains in the distance, the cross, the buildings that house people who have come to renew, to reinvigorate, and just to enjoy. 


He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake...  Psalm 23
For the glory of a new day, for the cool, almost cold, fall breeze, for allowing the roses to bloom along the paths for yet a while longer . . . You are awesome in this place, Abba Father!




Jane Bennett Gaddy, Ph.D.
Trinity, FLA

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It was Over... The South Was Defeated

By
Isaac Payne rode with the last of his company to Appomattox on April 10 with no inkling of what to expect. He waited outside the perimeter. Enlisted men were not allowed to be present on the streets of the Courthouse area. Only commanding officers. Isaac was emaciated, just like all the other southern patriots who leaned hard against the white picket fence that surrounded the township. Tired, empty, and disheartened, they waited to know the end of the story. One man could scarcely be identified from the next. They all looked the same. Withered and wasted. Isaac dismounted and patted Glory. She was his only earthly possession besides his weapons. His only connection to home. He gripped the bridle and pressed his face to her thin neck, unconsciously rubbing his hand over her protruding bones. If he looked up in the distance he might see his father and brother riding the dusty road to Appomattox to join him, but how could that be? They were dead. The thought of their absence and ...
5 comments
Read more

On The Cusp—

By
John 14:6 I am the way … Jesus sat with his disciples, giving them the most pleasant of instructions—instructions that concerned the state of the heart, though the human heart, apart from Christ, cannot be trusted.  Jeremiah described it as “… deceitful above all things and desperately wicked …” (17:9). But Jesus told the disciples in John 14:1: “Let not your heart be troubled …” He had spent the better part of three years with these men, and for some reason when He began that day to linger on going away and heaven and things prepared, Thomas just didn’t get it. He doubted and wondered and pondered and questioned:              “How will we get to the Father’s House?” and              “How on earth are we going to know the way?”             Imagine being there yourself as Jesus arrested thoughts...
3 comments
Read more

Once for All

By
I was just thinking… If we say that salvation is progressive— I loathe the word progressive these days—and that there is not that moment when we are set free from the law of sin and death, then we obviously are still under the law, trying by our own feeble efforts to save ourselves. How debilitating. Besides, that’s not going to happen. We don’t have what it takes. Or maybe we’re waiting for God to perform some random act of kindness toward us that will take us out of the misery of not knowing whether we’re saved or not, because it is a progressive thing, and if it is a progressive thing, then whenever will God do whatever it is He wants to do to make  it happen? See how outrageous it sounds? There is an answer, you know. Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life In Christ Jesus hath made me FREE from the law of sin and death.” We never had to work for it in the first place. The freedom Christ gives is—let’s see— FREE ! Paid for i...
2 comments
Read more