The Story of a Grateful Whale

The True Story Of A Grateful Whale
As Reported In The SF Chronicle


If you read the front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, Dec 15, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

The fifty-foot whale was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her her tail, her torso and a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her - a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around - she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate in the New Year -to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

Welcome to Holland

This is an actual true story written by Emily Perl Kingsley in 1987.

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip––to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.
____________________________

Dear Lord, may we find joy daily on our Journey in Holland.

What a good God you've been...

What a good God you've been to me
Your goodness and your grace everyday I've seen
and what else can I do but give thanks to you
What a good God you've been to me

What a faithful God you've been to me
You've provided far beyond everything I need
and what else can I do but give thanks to you
What a faithful God you've been to me

What a loving God you've been to me
You shed your blood on the cross so that I could be made free
and what else can I do but give thanks to you
What a loving God you've been
What a faithful God you've been
What a good God you've been.... to me!

- as sung on the cd Long Play Thanksgiving by the Maranatha! Singers

If you would like to hear a sample of it on Itunes, click here

He will never let you sink

Jesus actually walked on this after He fed the five thousand!

OK... maybe not THIS exact water because I took this picture in the middle of the Caribbean and He actually walked on the Sea of Galilee in Israel. (I wanted to give you a visual.)

Whether the story is familiar to you or not, enjoy this simple to understand, modern version of this bible passage ...

On a rocky hillside, he took two smelly fish and five crusty loaves of bread and fed over five thousand people.
“WOW!” The disciples must have thought, “We should open a restaurant!” Well, maybe they didn’t think the restaurant part - but they were amazed by the miracle they just saw Jesus do. The crowd was still buzzing about the whole thing when Jesus took Peter by the arm and said, “You guys go on ahead to the other side of the lake. I’ll catch up with you later.” (OK, we don’t really know what Jesus said exactly. For one thing, he was speaking in Aramaic and not English. And chances are pretty good he didn’t call the disciples ‘you guys.’) But we do know that Jesus told the disciples to get in their boat and go across the lake. He needed some time to be alone. Well, imagine if you had crowds of people following you around everywhere you went, always wanting something from you. You’d want to get away to be alone sometimes too! But what Jesus really needed was time to pray. We all do!

So Jesus blessed the people and sent them on their way home. And he sent them away full - not just with a good meal, but with the word of God. They all left knowing a little better just how much God loved them. So Jesus watched the last few stragglers pick their way through the rocks, and then he turned and climbed up the mountain a ways.

When night came, Jesus was still there praying, alone on the mountainside. Of course, he wasn’t really alone. He was with his Father. No one is ever really alone. God is always with us.

Meanwhile, the disciples were on the lake below, trying to row across it. It was very dark now, and a strong wind was blowing right in their faces. Well, right in the faces of the lucky ones who weren’t trying to row against it. Those poor guys had their backs to the wind and were rowing against it with all their might - and hardly getting anywhere! “This is just great!” they were probably grumbling to each other as sprays of water splashed in their faces and the waves tossed their little boat every which way - except the way they wanted to go! “Jesus sends us out across the lake with this blasted wind doing its best to blow us back! Couldn’t he do something about that?!” (We like to grumble whenever things get hard, don’t we.)

But Jesus could see that they were in trouble.

The wind was howling, the sea was still tossing their boat this way and that, when one of the disciples happened to look out into the night. “WHAT IS THAT?!!!”
There was a man walking on the water!!!

In the dark of the night they saw a man coming towards them on the water - his hair was blowing wildly, his robe was being whipped by the wind like a flag in a windstorm.
They were terrified! (...well, wouldn’t YOU be?!)

“IT’S A GHOST!!” they screamed.

But just then, they heard a voice say, “Take courage! Don’t be afraid. It is me!”

It was Jesus!

“Lord, is it really you?” Peter said, holding his hand over his eyes to block the spray of the splashing waves. “If it really IS you, tell me to come out to you on the water!” Peter was a brave man! (Or he was crazy!)

Jesus said, “Come.” Peter stuck one leg out over the side of the boat and set his foot on the water. It didn’t sink in! He stepped out with his other foot, and it didn’t sink. He stood up. He was standing on the water! He took one step, and then another, and then another. He was walking on the water, just like Jesus!

Peter was walking on the water! He might have even been thinking to himself, “Hey! Look at me. I am walking on the water! Aren’t I great!” But wait a minute. People can’t walk on water.

And then Peter started to look around him. All of a sudden, the boat seemed awfully small and far away. There was nothing but black, churning water all around him. The waves were lapping at his feet, water was stinging his eyes. And then, just like that, the water under his feet let go.

“Help me, Lord!” Peter gulpped, splashing wildly as the cold water swallowed him down. “Save me!”

But before the water could gulp Peter down entirely, Jesus reached down with his strong hand (he WAS a carpenter after all) and grabbed him by the arm.

“Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And with that, Jesus pulled Peter up out of the water and carried him, dripping wet, back to the boat.

Just as they were climbing over the side of the boat, the wind died away and the sea turned smooth as glass. Everything was suddenly peaceful and quiet.

One minute the wind was roaring and the sea was crashing, the next all was peaceful and calm.

Some of the disciples must have remembered just then the Psalm they learned in school - “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper, the waves of the sea were hushed.” (Psalm 107:13)
Those disciples knew that only God has the power to calm the wind and the waves - and that’s just what Jesus did. “Truly you ARE the Son of God!” they said to Jesus in awe and wonder. And they bowed down and worshipped him right then and there.

Now, we don’t know for sure, but maybe Peter sat there shivering in the back of the boat with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, thinking about all that had just happened. And maybe he was hearing over and over in his head the words Jesus had calmy said, ‘Why did you doubt?’
‘Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt?’
Why DID Peter doubt? Just the day before, he saw Jesus turn two fish and five loaves of bread into enough to feed five thousand people. And now he saw Jesus walking on the water. Jesus said it was okay, so he stepped out onto the water. He trusted Jesus. He stepped out of the boat because Jesus had called him, and his faith held him up. But then he saw the darkness all around him, he felt the wind stinging his face, he saw the swirling black water beneath him... and he doubted. He took his eyes off Jesus and he became afraid. He forgot about Jesus. And he sank.

And it may be that Peter learned a lesson that night that he never forgot. When trouble is all around - keep your eyes on Jesus.

If you're in a similar circumstance, apply Peter's lesson to your life and focus on Jesus, He will never let you sink.

water and rocks

I took this picture in Laguna Beach, CA. It's one of my favorite places to visit.

I've always found it quite fascinating, the way that waves crash into rocks. The force by which the water hits the rocks leaves me speechless.

The broken pieces of the rocks are carried by the water and deposited in new places where, over time, heat and pressure melt the pieces together to form a new rock. A forceful rush of water can cut deep canyons into dry desert rock. Like for example, the Grand Canyon, in Arizona, it was carved by water.

It's breath-taking... It's massive... It's exceptionally wild.

As I sit here, staring at this picture, I'm recalling the sounds I heard when those waves crashed against the rocks. I'm remembering such amazing colors and smells. I wish I was there again. If only, just for this moment. To soak in it... to take it all in again.

I love how God uses nature to reveal Himself in a personal way. I honestly just wish I would allow myself to stop hearing the noise around me and to actually listen more intently to His voice and see Him manifested in all things.

It really puts into perspective a lot of the minimal things in my sometimes crazy life. When I remember how much He loves me and wants to reveal Himself, it's like I'm back at my favorite place... speechless... all over again.