Wow is West Virginia beautiful or what! I think that this is God's country. The area has been carved out of the hills here, and is extremely striking with chiseled, unpolished features. On the trip up, I was able to fly on a company plane, and it was nice with the exception of the last few minutes before arrival. Turbulence is not my friend.



I had a moment while flying that allowed me to start to look at the creative power of God in a different way. Looking up at clouds from the ground, you are fooled to believe that they are somehow attached to the blue background of the sky. When you are eye-to-eye with these billowing masses, you realize that they hang suspended in mid-air. It amazes me as to how these gigantic beings float. These masses of "nothing" sprawl like a carpet, letting nothing penetrate their protective cover. When you are approaching, it appears that the sky stops at the cloud bank, but only when you break through can you see the complexity of the atmosphere that they conceal.

As we flew over this part of West Virginia, we were able to see the flooding that had taken place over night. In an area that is ripe with trees and greenery, the creamy brown flood waters stood out against their backdrop. I saw that the water rushed and filled the low-lying areas, overpowering residents and structures in their path. From this point of view, I felt extremely insignificant in the big picture of things. God is mighty. His creations are purposeful and have meaning. Nature follows his lead, and anything standing in his way cannot stand very long.

After we broke through the cloud bank, we had a span of time to just observe the peaceful beauty of being isolated from the destruction on the ground. The clouds were our buffer. The light was brighter, the white was whiter, and the absence of color was outstanding. I guess that what this revealed to me, is that we can be lifted above the problems this life brings. We look at the horizon and see the limitations of what can be done. When we break through these limitations, we see the magnificence and provision that God is capable of. Our ceiling becomes our floor when God takes us into His safe place. Our world is changed in the blink of an eye, and we can no longer even see the troubles that haunted us. For those moments that God carries us on his shoulders, we experience true peace and trust. We look face-to-face at the majesty of our Heavenly Father. We now see that the reality that we looked at while in our situation was only a small portion of what was present. While we are enjoying the sanctuary from devastation, we don't realize that we are being taken out of the situation and are being delivered to a new place.

We began our descent, and came through the cloud bank. When we could see the ground again, we were much removed from the flood waters. The view was normal and beautiful again, like nothing had ever happened. We had been delivered to a new destination without having to trip through the troubles on the ground. I guess that this was one of the things that drove Noah when he took on the project of boat-building.