The Beauty of Wrong

I was convinced our field trip was going to go poorly. 

Turns out I was wrong.

Our first stop was the Bruski and Stevens Twin Sinks in lovely Leer. I was sure that the kids would groan, "But it's just a hole in the ground!" Turns out I was wrong. They were delighted with the depth and breadth of the pits. And, huzzah, none of them fell in.

Next we visited the Cracks in the Earth, over near Sunken Lake. I thought surely the kids would think them dull. Turns out I was wrong. There were middle school monkeys clambering into every crevice, calling to each other delightedly to come and see, marveling at the softness of the moss and popping up out of the earth every which way. By the time we moved on they were breathless and beaming.

One more stop lay ahead, the mysterious Mystery Valley. It's a lake that sometimes is and sometimes isn't, groundwater filling it full and then whooshing away through underground passages in an escape that happens so quickly that they say sometimes a whirlpool forms over the main sinkhole that is its bottom. (How cool is that??)

I figured we would get to the shore, the kids would say, "Huh," and then we would turn around and go home. Turns out I was wrong. The lake was mostly drained. A pool of water lay at the far end of the long bowl of lakebed. The kids tturned to me with bright, pleading eyes. "Can we go play in it?"

In moments my muck-booted monkeys were stomping about in the water, pretending to be river monsters and finding tiny shells and conquering islands. They crouched and examined the weird fibrous mucky skim in one part of the lake, brought me the strange exoskeletons of small water creatures, and gasped at the water line high in the trees.

Nothing, I thought, could add to this field trip. It couldn't get any better. ...Turns out I was wrong.

Heeding my "Gotta go!" cry, the kids were reluctantly turning from their play and shaking the water out of their boots. One of them, probably stalling for time, pointed to the little rise at the very end of the valley. "Can't we just go peek and see what's over there first?"

We tromped up the little rise. When they got to the top, the kids stopped. There was a moment's breathless pause. Then, with one voice, they gave a collective, "Woah."

There at their feet was the greenest, clearest, prettiest pool of water I've ever seen. It lay in perfect emerald stillness, serenely reflecting back the layered wall of rock that rose to imposing heights behind it. The students just stood, absorbing this unexpected wonderfulness.

That didn't last long, of course. In a few moments they were giggling and scaring each other with trailing wads of watery moss. We squished cheerfully back across the lake bottom, the kids piggybacking and skipping a bit in the morning sunshine.

Sometimes it is wonderful to be wrong.

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Life With God. It seems like it should be such a heart-warming thing. But . . . can it really be as amazing as the satin-voiced radio personalities make it out to be? It's a lot to ask of life, that it would be all warm and glowy and full of holy contentment. Surely it can't be as good as all that. 

Our God is so much fun, isn't He? I love the way He loves us. He doesn't wait for us to come looking for a Life of Godliness or to feel properly religious. He comes to us, right where we are, and sits down in the midst of our lives. He shakes His head affectionately at our low expectations and tells us just how wrong we are.

Little blessings tuck themselves in around us and fill our days with joy, if only we have eyes willing to see it. Our God walks beside us, hearing our hearts with ceaseless understanding. He sends laughter in the midst of tears, sits beside us in the waiting room, and shows us His face in the faithfulness of a friend. 

And then, just when we think it can't possibly get any better, we walk up Calvary's hill, look up with unexpecting eyes, and have a moment of emerald-green clarity in which we see, if only for a instant, how unfathomably, incomprehensibly, unchangingly we are loved. And our hearts pause, stopped in their tracks, and utter a breathless, "Woah."

My logical brain tells me that life as God's child just can't be as good as I want it to be. But our loving Lord and risen Savior comes to us again and again with His illogical love, offering surprise after surprise, exceeding every expectation. It is so good - so very good - to be wrong.