Abandoned at Coldwater

Psalm 23:1-2
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Coldwater Lake in Washington State looks so pretty, nestled between the mountains. This scene of tranquility is very popular among the fishing community.

A better view of Coldwater Lake can be had by climbing the steep trail up to Coldwater Ridge. As you reach the top, you look back at the magnificent views of the Mount St Helens with its gaping crater, forever marred by having lost such a large portion of itself in the violent eruption of May 1980.

In the other direction, you see the lake, which did not even exist before the eruption. The devastation caused by the volcano blocked Coldwater Creek so that the valley filled with water.

So you keep walking along the ridge, and you espy a different sort of devastation. Huge pieces of rusting machinery can be seen. This machinery was there to aid with logging processes because this ridge used to be covered with forest before the eruption.

The blast from the volcano had a speed of up to 350 mph as it hit the ridge, knocking down the trees and sending the logging machinery into a spin so that it landed in its current position. If the eruption had occurred on the Monday or the Saturday, one can imagine that this machinery would have been operated by many loggers, causing far more deaths than actually occurred on that Sunday morning.

Out of that violence has come the tranquility of the lake scenery, just as out of the violence of the worldwide Flood, God brought a message of hope and mercy to a world reborn.

Prayer: Thank You for the beauty of Your creation, Lord. And thank You that You bring beauty out of brokenness. We pray that You will do just that in the brokenness of our lives and our hearts. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref:accessed 7/27/2017. Image: Public Domain.