Over memorial weekend 3 world racers traveled to the 1000 islands region of New York for a little adventure. In the randomness that defines their life they purchased pirate tattoos and became a band of fearsome pirates feasting on gummy bears and hot dogs, wearing American hats wherever they went, and sailing the seven seas (well, a cruising on a river via tour boat… but, they were pretty tough, trust me.) You can read Lenses pirate tale here and Captain Djibouti’s story here.
Fanny A Turtle (aka me) was most excited to see a castle. When asked what she was doing for memorial day weekend she would reply, “seeing a castle.” The rest of the details didn’t seem as important. Her excitement for the castle could not even be squashed by Lenses taking one look at it from across the river and saying, “That’s it?!?”
The castle was a pretty amazing structure. Mr Boldt basically built this gigantic castle to show how much he loved his wife. It was even named Heart Castle and he had the island reshaped into a heart. By all Hallmark standards this was a pretty romantic place. But then his wife died suddenly. So overtaken with sadness he sent order to stop construction and never returned to the island. So this castle sat abandoned for years.
As excited as Fanny was to see this place she couldn’t help but get a little sad. He built this whole shrine to his wife and she never even got to see it. He spent what happened to be the last 4 years of her life up in New York overseeing the construction of this project. The place is big enough that 25 families of four could live there comfortably and it sits unfinished and uninhabited. It is so extravagant and so wasteful. It reminded Fanny of this verse from Matthew 7:
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
The pirates left impressed with the beauty but a little dazed with the realization that this castle was built for questionable reasons and in the end it was exactly like the man who built his house on sand. When trouble came along all the reasons Heart Castle was constructed washed away.
These were some pretty smart pirates right? They recommitted themselves to relying on God and doing everything on his rock not on their own sand… which lasted less than 24 hours.
The next morning they woke up to rain. They played many hours of cards but it continued to drizzle. That evening, Captain Djibouti decided he was going to build a fire (with wet firewood while it was still drizzling). Lenses, being the faithful sidekick she is, decided to help. Fanny decided they were crazy and took a nap in the tent. Thirty minutes later, still no fire. Fanny invited them back into the dry tent and they took a break.
The tent wall turned suddenly turned pink and out of their window they saw that not only had the rain stopped, but there was a gorgeous sunset happening over the water.
Captain D set back off to build the fire. With wet ground, wet firewood and little kindling they were still fireless 2 attempts later. After a little mocking from Fanny….
… they just prayed that if God wanted them to have a fire, please let this work already! The next time they tried to light it, it worked. They had fire and cavemen everywhere were smiling.
In search of medium sized firewood Captain Djibouti tried to split a piece using his hunting knife. It wouldn’t split so he handed it over to Fanny and headed off to go see if there was the right sized wood in the car.
Fanny thought to herself, “if God can start this fire, maybe he can split this wood.” So with Lenses at her side she said, “God, split this fire wood in half!!” and began beating it against the picnic table and the fire pit. As she was beating the wood against the pit her eyes were drawn to the crack in the end of the wood that Captain D has been working on with his knife. She hooked it over the edge of the fire pit for leverage and split the wood right in half! God had done it again.
That night three pirates enjoyed hot dogs, s’mores, and most likely a few gummy bears in front of a fire that they couldn’t build themselves.
Lesson observed and lesson learned… God wants us to lean on him in all things and do the things he has planned for us. Maybe God does want some of us to build castles and maybe sometimes we are called to build fires in the rain, but until we let God have control we don’t seem to get very far…
