Giant Redwoods and Grieving Hearts

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We arrived in Fortuna, CA after spending a great day riding on winding roads and through Redwood Forests and along the northern coast of California. After supper, we sat in the hot tub for a while then settled in for a few episodes of Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel. Today we went north to Redwood National Park and then Northwest to Medford, OR. We stopped at AAA and picked up some maps that should get us through the rest of our trip. Grace and I were both in kind of a lousy mood this morning when we started out and had a few sharp words with each other, but I think the Redwoods kind of took the stress out of the situation. We were soon happy and holding hands.

After spending some time at the Redwood National Park visitor Center, we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Redwood Grove. It was a one mile walk through a virgin forest of redwoods that were absolutely huge. What amazed me about them is how hardy they are. They grow to be so old because they have a thick insulating bark that protects the tree from fire. Even when the tree burns, the whole heart of the tree can burn but as long as it has roots still emersed in the soil, it will survive. I stood inside a tree that had been burned out, but still it had spreading green branches 200 feet in the air.

After our walk, we headed northwest toward Medford and traveled through beautiful forests and winding roads and along pristine rivers. It was great! We arrived in Medford around 4:30 in the afternoon and checked into a Super 8. Our last 20 miles were in the rain.

The scripture text today is John 11, and was about a journey that Jesus was on. He was over in another province healing and teaching when he got word from his friends in Bethany that his good friend Lazaras was sick and near death. Instead of jumping up and rushing over to Bethany, he stayed around for another day or so. The text says that he knew that Lazaras had already died. When he finally arrived in Bethany, each sister, both Mary and Martha, confronted him with the words, "If you had been here, our brother would not have died." In that text, we find the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus Wept" (John 11:35).

Jesus did not weep for Lazaras, because he already knew he would be raising Lasaras from the dead. What it appears he was weeping for is the grief he saw on the faces and heard in the voices of these two sisters.

We are nearly 2000 miles from home, yet twice this past week we received word of the death of people we know and love. Last week I was standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon when my phone rang and I got word that Peggy Hensley passed away. I've always loved Peggy and appreciated her southern spice and flashy temper. Yet under that tough exterior was the most loving and tender person you could find.

Three days ago when we were getting ready to leave Stinson Beach, CA, I went on Facebook and discovered that my brother Dave's father-in-law, Harold Jorgenson, had passed away. Harold was a true gentleman and was as calm and gentle as anyone I've ever met. It was just one year and four days earlier that his daughter, my brother's wife Ronda, passed away after a long battle with cancer. Our prayers are with Bonnie Jorgenson and their family after having to face so much grief over the past year.
While they are a family of strong faith in Christ, there is still something about death and grief that grabs a hold of us and doesn't let us go. Grief causes confusion and disappointment. It is crippling to us emotionally and makes it difficult to go from day to day and function normally.

As Christians, we know of eternal life -- but our short sightedness and most of all -- OUR CONSUMING LOVE toward other people, causes us to experience this emotional paralysis. To deny grief is to deny love. So we push through it as best we can and remember those we loved so greatly.

Jesus' love for these women caused him to cry. He is the very giver of life. In this very passage he said, "I am the resurrection and the life..." Yet even knowing the outcome, he wept over the grief these women experienced. Do you suppose he weeps for us when our hearts break?

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