God is the master of beauty - Zion National Park

 

On a whim, we decided to turn west and go through Zion National Park today. WOW!! What a great decision. This place was so amazing we decided to stay there most of the day doing hikes and looking around. It was super beautiful.

 

The colored cliffs were ominous. They went straight up from the valley floor. We went on a hike along the valley floor following the river until we couldn’t got any further. At that point the river spanned the entire canyon bottom of only about 100 feet or so across. Many folks went on through the river to a point that is only about 10 feet across further up – they call it the slot canyon because it goes thousands of feet up, yet is only about 10 feet across.

 

There were several places that the sandstone was “Weeping”. The guides said that the sandstone absorbs water and eventually has to “weep” it out when the water hits a layer of shale. The water then goes horizontally and drips out of the sandstone making a place for these “hanging gardens” to grow. Beautiful flowers and fern like plants that seem to be growing right out of the vertical cliffs.

 

Everything was so beautiful. It was truly a wonderful “accident” or more likely, God directing our paths.

 

Ponderings today: The Lord has so much beauty in the world, that we could never, ever see it all even if we spent our whole life pursuing it. This is such a contrast to our human efforts, where we typically only beautify the areas of house, person, work projects, etc. that people can SEE. God on the other hand has so overwhelmingly placed beauty in this world and universe that will hardly ever be seen. It really brings more meaning to songs that proclaim that he IS “Beautiful”. He is the creator of all things beautiful and is so thorough, we’ll never run out of seeing NEW beautiful things, people, acts and thoughts.

 

My mind is blown – He is a master at beauty.