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Our last few days in Africa, our squad had an incredible opportunity to spend a few days in Zanzibar, a beautiful tropical island a mere two hour Catamaran ride off the coast of Tanzania.
Now, if you have kept up with me at all, you know full well that water–especially oceans–are my prime love language. So, you can only imagine how much the Lord spoke to me in those 48 hours on the island.
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It is one of those warm summer nights where the light ocean breeze continually rushes over your skin just lightly enough to make you wonder if is actually chilly outside. There is not a cloud to be seen across the entire starry expanse. The Southern Hemisphere has me skeptically eying Orion who seems to be laying down on the edge of the Indian Ocean for an early nap–I guess even warriors need rest. Planets I have never seen before beam radiantly through my half asleep eyelids, and galaxies seem to form and dissolve in my peripheral.
I sit on a wooden fishing boat, beached in the shallow white sand of low tide. I hear the ocean waves booming and crashing almost a mile out to sea, and a gentle lapping of baby waves rhythmically hit the side of the boat.
As I stare out into the nothingness, on the horizon it seems that a boat may be BURNING as far out as I can see. I call to the only other person crazy enough to be up at 2:30 in the morning, and together we watch this fire burn brighter and higher. For a moment I wonder if there is anything we can do–after all, this is Africa; there’s no coastguard, let alone SOS or working radios. So we sit and it keeps growing. I am sure now that my eyes must be playing tricks, dizzy with exhaustion. But the longer we stare, the bigger it gets…until suddenly it comes into focus. The burning red is the rising of the waning crescent moon.
And oh, is it ever the most beautiful color juxtaposing the darkness of the night sky. As I watch it rise, I breathe in cool, salty sea air and He gently whispers,
“This is my PEACE more valuable than all understanding.”
And in that moment, every last crevice of me settled in that truth.
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Same beach. Same scene. Add scathingly hot sun, 20 crazy people on fire for the Lord, burning white sand, lounge chairs.
I am at the edge of our group spread out over the expanse of the beach. To my left are two hilarious women laying in woven rope lounge chairs. Beyond them, more of our women are indulging in an afternoon PB&J on chapatti. To my left are four of our crazy women who live out faith like a child having mud wars and mud baths in the shallow tides of the white sand. And next to them are three men who have come to mean the world to me this year having an afternoon cigar on that same beached boat from the night before. I am peppering a volleyball (other love language) with a dear, beloved sister and friend as my skin soaks in the delectable, irreplaceable vitamin-C it had so missed being hidden under high-necked t-shirts and floor length skirts for the preceding three months. As I chase the rogue ball down to the shoreline, I find myself praising the Lord for this moment…
Because this was His way of giving me fullness of joy!
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There are other places and ways like these that He invites us to taste and see His goodness. I am still waiting for that one uber-tangible experience like the two I have described above that will be: “Love that surpasses all knowledge.” I have felt it mostly in human relationships with people whose language I never understand…What about you? How does He speak to the deep waters in you?
