Joy

In early September I had the privilege to get to spend 13 days on a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta with my wife June.   We were blessed with safe travels and good weather as we checked off one more place on our bucket list.   It was a time of relaxing, refreshing, and recharging.

I've got a lot of images from this trip and it's taking me a while to work through them.   When I finish I'll post my favorites in a new gallery on my website.  For now, I'd like to share one from one evening in the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park.

This row boat is on the shore of Lake Josephine not far from the Many Glacier Hotel.  We had stopped to photograph it around 9:30 on our way up the Grinnell Glacier Trail.  At that time the sun was behind me and the light was OK, but not very dramatic.  By the time we made it back down to this point it was 5:30 in the afternoon and the light had completely changed.   Instead of a low contrast uninteresting photo I now had fantastic warm afternoon light including God Beams coming out of the clouds and reaching across the frame to the other side.  What a gift!

The name of the boat pretty much sums up that day in Glacier.  We had woken up to a fantastic sunrise right outside our hotel and I was given enough time to set up to take nine shots to stitch together to create this panorama.   After a big breakfast we had one of our best hikes of the trip up to Grinnell Glacier.  The best part was I was able to share it with June.


As joyful as this day was it pales in comparison to the joy of being forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus.   The word joy occurs 217 times in the Bible and this joy is available to all.  What a blessing!  I'll leave you with Paul's words.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - Romans 15:13