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I’m sitting on a slab of metamorphic rock the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, its flat upper surface slanting at about a 30-degree angle into the cold, crystal water of a mountain lake. The sky is achingly deep and blue, highlighted by a few billowy white late July clouds drifting eastward over the pine covered mountains, all reflected in the slightly textured lake surface like some renaissance master’s landscape in oil on canvas. My hiking boots and socks sit beside me as I alternately dip my feet into the snowmelt-chilled water then rest them on the sun-warmed rock’s umber banded face. The peace here is palpable, enfolding my soul in God’s grace. It’s called Lost Lake, and is surely among the most restful and beautiful of places on earth.
My canteen is full and satisfies my physical thirst, but the thirst of the soul is satisfied only by living water that brings life everlasting. When considering the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well, the pastoral scene above fills my mind’s eye. It speaks of thirst quenched beyond the yearnings of a parched throat, filling every fiber of my being with spiritual refreshment, freely given but for the asking. Ironically, on that last visit to Lost Lake nearly a decade past, I was still a lost sheep, my ears closed to my Shepherd’s voice. Grace is indeed amazing.
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