Many years ago a miracle happened amidst the wild daisies growing along the road where the bees frolicked each morning. It recurred at high noon on the mossy rocks surrounding the icy artesian waters of the frog pond, and again in the afternoon as I dug my toes in the sand and searched for quartz gems and shell treasures in the wavy shallows of the lake.

I discovered hope.

It didn’t happen instantly, as is the usual expectation for just about everything these days. We’re all too eager to be rescued by everything from instant oatmeal to instant debt recovery. No, this was a deeper and subtler work…God’s work…and He rarely is obvious or quick when He works in our hearts. And yet the change was REAL.

Most of the time my home was defined by the runaway anguish of two parents consumed by anger (my father) and depression (my mother). Although I vicariously learned all too well the lessons of fear, inadequacy, doubt and suspicion, I also grew to trust a regular place of respite: our lake cottage.

Each summer the inner turmoil - that squeamish, sickening blackness in my soul - was burned away by the brilliance of millions of diamonds on the water. Red-winged blackbirds called me beyond despair from their swaying perches atop the cattails. Cute but clumsy tadpoles in the creek proved it was possible to grow beyond waggling and acquire powerful legs – to actually GO places!

I began to believe I shared more than a casual acquaintance with the lake. In fact, we developed a committed relationship. I embraced its many moods – from storm-tossed and boiling with white caps, to glassy and silky smooth. The lake never let me down, but without reservation shared each day with me – the real deal. No masks, no pretense, no false faces.

It wasn’t until decades later that I began to understand what really happened during those sun-warmed days when we lived in my father’s hand-built cabin along the shores of the lake. But eventually, I saw clearly. God supernaturally intervened to heal me and prepare me for the rest of eternity. He faithfully prepared my wounded and guarded heart to BELIEVE in something mysterious, greater than myself, unchanging, refreshing, renewing and hopeful.

Later I would realize how the lake experience prevented my heart from becoming permanently hardened. I might have otherwise entered my adult life emotionally crippled – mistrustful and reclusive. But Truth prevailed! During my days at the lake, the One who created it methodically instructed me. I was schooled in what it meant to have faith: to trust and believe.

Then one day when He whispered my name and said, “Come,” His voice sounded just like the whisper of the waves – and I took the plunge.

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