Sometimes one must go through murk before they can see beauty. Murk so thick you cannot even see ones hand in front of ones face, but beauty so magnificent that it leaves one speechless and in awe.
As I sit here in our house on Lake Atilitan, Panajachel I correlate the idea of beauty to our scuba diving experience. Here me out as I put these two together… Saturday morning we meet at 7:45 to get scuba diving lessons, we geared up and headed out to the street to wait for a truck to pick us up. Walking down the street we looked a little ridiculous wearing these outfits. Once we got down to the lake (which looks so beautiful from far away) we saw how infected it has become in the last 2 weeks.
A little back story… The lake was so clean and clear. Beautifully encompassed by volcanoes and mountains but Hurricane Stan wiped out much of this city. The already faulty drainage system was wiped out into the river and has recently broken into the lake. Within two weeks mysterious algae have infested the entire lake. The indigenous people here both drink and bathe in the lake and now many of them are getting sick. Tests have been done, and the water has been found to not be toxic but they still do not know exactly what it is.
Needless to say we decided to scuba anyways because under the 15ft depth mark the water is beautiful. Once we actually got up to the lake I thought about changing my mind and not getting in the gross murky water. It was hard to fathom that under 15ft the water was clear. Our goal was to go down to 50 or 60 ft. I guess sometimes I must fight to see beauty and go through the murk to get there.
We inched our way in. The thought that this algae was completely around my body made me feel sick. It was in my regulator, in my mask, inside my wetsuit, just everywhere. Time came to go under and make myself sink. First I went down with Ben and Alana and when we go to a mere 10ft I felt like my head was going to explode. I tried to get down to fast to see of this beauty before giving myself time to pressurize. Thus as soon as I felt pressure my body went into fight or flight mode and I swam back up as quick as possible. That’s how I work… I run when the going gets tough. Sometimes I jump into things to fast, as I did with trying to get to the bottom before I allowed myself to adjust. 3 times I tried and only made it to 15 ft. The clear beautiful water was just right outside of my reach. I could finally see it but couldn’t touch it because of the pressure, and immediately came back up to the top again, admists the gross murk. The pressure in my head made me want to just stay up at the top and float in the middle of the lake. But floating there and not taking my time to get to the bottom meant I would never experience its beauty. Chillin in the algae was not my idea of a good time in order to remain comfortable. I was not complacent where I was at, I wanted to see that beauty and I wanted to fight to get there. That meant I had to give up my comfortability.
The 4th time I went down I took it super slow with Jordan and Caiti. Alana, Syd, and Ben were already down… seeing the beauty that I oh so badly wanted to see. Slowly I pressurized my body to adjust to the depth. Eventually we made it through the murk and we saw beautiful colors of blue, almost like we broke through a pocket to experience a completely new thing. Once we got to 40 ft my pressure was completely normal and I gained the endurance to keep going. We found the rest of the group swimming together and that brought so much peace to my heart. It was so worth going through the murk to see the beauty beneath it. We reached our goal depth and it was magnificent.
In that realization, sometimes we run. We run where we want instead of taking our time to walk as God wants us to. If we continue to run we stay in the murk just outside of the reach of beauty. If we walk at His pace He will slowly bring us out of the murk into marvelous light and beauty. Beauty that cannot be fathomed. Sometimes the walk is long, sometimes it is hard, but once you get there you don’t miss an inch and you realize it was worth it all. So take your time, enjoy life, and seek after beauty. The beauty of Christ.
