From the Bare Remains

Over the weekend, I ran on trails and roads in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, beneath hundred year old trees clamoring for attention, alongside streams dancing over rocks, and passing over dirt pathways cut into the wilderness by those who have gone before. These paths weave back and forth like the drowsiness of a summer's afternoon nap, in and out, deeper, further into the woods.

One morning after such a run, I read in a brochure that a hundred years ago, this place of beauty, this place that restores my soul, was a place of utter devastation, gouged out and ravaged by the greed of many men. The loggers hacked down sanctuaries of old growth trees, obliterating the forest, leaving nothing behind.  They even built a railway so that they could move faster and deeper into the remote wooded area, doing the same, no end in sight.

When all was said and done, they gladly sold off the splintered remains to those who had a bigger vision -- to build a park.

And so, 79 years ago, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established to become a place of refuge, refreshment, and renewal.  Who would come to this cobbled together land stripped of foliage? Well, more than 9 million people a year.  I see them picnicking with their families, hiking the trails, and looking wide-eyed at this magnificent display of God's creation.  Once while standing in a crowd observing a bear from a distance, a little red-headed four year old girl turned to me and said with great astonishment, "They're REAL!!!"

Indeed, the forest has returned.  Over the years, it grew back thick and lush.  The devastation became the raw material of God's redemption. He restores the land in ways that could not be imagined. And redeems our lives as well.

He always does.

Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing,
now it springs forth,
     do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.

                          Isaiah 43. 18-19

And He who sat upon the throne said,
"Behold,
          I make all things new."

                           Revelation 21.5