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“The volcanic eruption changed everything there for a while, but not forever.”

A thought by Maria Goff (2017-03-07) from her book, Love Lives Here: Finding  What You Need in a World Telling You What You Want (Kindle Location 603). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Have you ever been to Hawaii?  Our church in Las Vegas helped us to go a few years back.  It is a beautiful Island.  It really is but at one time it was burning hot lava.  Now look at all.  It is beautiful.

Maria said after visiting there with her family, “This place was paradise to us. Exotic plants grew everywhere, birds nested, and gentle waves from the Pacific Ocean lapped up against the shoreline. The volcanic eruption changed everything there for a while, but not forever.” 

She goes on, “Most of us think of paradise as a place where nothing has ever gone wrong. I disagree. We often find our safest and most beautiful places where the lava once flowed. These are places where we’ve been able to find the beauty because we’re not living in the past anymore. We’ve not only outgrown it, we’ve outlived it. It doesn’t always happen fast, but it happens. Don’t let what’s happened in your past stop you from moving forward with your future. Give it some time. We can find our way around the lava where it flowed and build something beautiful on it when it cools. Give it the time it needs, but don’t let your pain fool you into believing it’s never the right time to deal with it.”

Margaret and I went through a lava time in our life.  It was not paradise.  I call it my three-year-jerk-time.  I was not a fun person to live with.  But somehow with God’s love, we grew through it and we are living in paradise right now in our life.  Oh, there are some bugs in paradise but it is such a good time in our life. 

Of course, we had to deal with the problems that caused the eruption.  I had to get my focus off of me and my wants and start focusing on loving God and on loving my family and ministering to their needs and their wants more.  We built a new life in spite of the lava.

So, maybe you are going through a lava time in your life and it isn’t paradise.  As Maria said, “We often find our safest and most beautiful places where the lava once flowed. These are places where we’ve been able to find the beauty because we’re not living in the past anymore.”

So will you start dealing with the lava and start looking for the beauty?
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