At the Foot of Mount St Helens

Psalm 29:7-8
The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

In another Creation Moment, I talked about the Road to Mount St Helens. One of my favorite spots on this road can be found 40 miles along the road – still 12 miles short of the dead end at the Johnston Ridge Observatory. At this point, you will find Castle Lake Viewpoint. Castle Lake can be seen across the valley – a lake, which did not exist before the 1980 eruption, but collected in a side valley, which was blocked by the amazing landslide. Even more spectacular to me is the view of Mount St Helens, and the area below it, where we can see the unique eco-system known as the Hummocks, which are little hills, where portions of the landslide lost energy, and settled in lumps, as would happen to baking flour, poured down a sloping baking sheet.

The landscape of the Hummocks was barren in the aftermath of the eruption. Scientists, at the time, supposed that a thousand years would be needed for the area to recover. Yet, recovery began in months, and can now be seen to be extensive – just as the recovery of the whole world would have been after the Flood. Most of the Visitors’ Centers close to the volcano refer to the “remarkable” or “astounding” rate of recovery seen in the Monument area – an area where deliberate planting has been banned since the eruption. For Believers, we are reminded that this recovery is exactly what we would expect. God oversaw the recovery of an entire planet, after the worldwide devastation that He had sent in Genesis 6 through 8. Rapid recovery at Mount St Helens is only understandable, because the Bible is true.

Prayer:
We love Your word, O God, and we thank You that Your invisible attributes are clearly seen in the whole of creation. Amen.

Notes:
Ref: The Road to Mount St Helens: A Mount St Helens Creation Center Guidebook, (Toutle, WA: J6D Publications, 2016)
Image: Adobe Stock Photos, license held by author

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