We’d
been riding in a taxi through the Andes Mountains for two and a half hours,
holding on for dear life along steep, narrow
roads that curved left and right and left again. Stretches of road—with no
guardrails—teetered over drop-offs of hundreds of feet.
Every
few moments the driver blasted his horn and we bolted forward. He used his
brakes as often as his horn. Buses and cars careened toward us down the
mountainside and around corners.
I wanted to cry, Will this ride ever
end? But I couldn’t speak—near-hysteria had taken my breath away.
But
the trip wasn’t all bad. Luxuriant tropical vegetation surrounded us—hibiscus in red, pink, and white; leggy poinsettia trees in full bloom; carpets of
flowers in orange, magenta, and gold.
Coleus, tall and crimson, grew beside the road, and philodendrons and other tropical
plants I couldn’t name—all nestled among the woodlands. The vegetation was
different from what we’d always known in Seattle, yet beautiful.
“Watch
now!” our traveling companion, Laura, grinned. “You’ll see something special!”
A
few seconds later we rounded a corner and exited the Andean forest and, from
our spot high on the east edge of the Andes, Dave and I gasped at the view.
A
vast, low expanse of steaming plains spread out before us, stretching east,
north, and south—the llanos. An azure sky stretched to eternity, clean and
searing and clear.
Somewhere
out there, way out in that immense humid unknown, we’d find Lomalinda. (from
Chapter 5, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)
I’ve
always remembered that surprising, vivid scene.
Forty-three
years later, my heart still races when I relive it.
It
was as if a hush invaded the taxi
and
God whispered:
“I,
the Lord, made everything,
stretching
out the skies by myself
and
spreading out the earth all alone.”
Isaiah
44:24, NCV
At
such times we mortals can only
fall
on our knees and say:
“Come,
let us worship and bow down,
Let
us kneel before the Lord our Maker,
the
Maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalm
95:6, Psalm 146:6
“Worthy
are you, our Lord and God,
to
receive glory and honor and power,
for
you created all things,
and
by your will they exist and were created.”
Revelation
4:11, ESB
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