When Ice Bergs Come Crashing
The world’s largest iceberg has run aground in shallow waters off the remote island of South Georgia, home to millions of penguins and seals. The iceberg, which is about 1,250 square miles wide and 985 feet tall, appears to be stuck. The saga of the stranding of this iceberg is the culmination of a40-years long story that started when it first broke off the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf of Antarctica in 1986.
Experts expect it to start breaking up on the island’s southwest shores, since the tides will now be lifting the iceberg up and down. That will grind the iceberg backwards and forwards, eroding the ice.
Where the iceberg is touching the ice shelf where it is stuck, there are thousands of tiny creatures like coral, sea slugs, and sponge. Their entire universe is being bulldozed by a massive slab of ice scraping along the sea floor. That is catastrophic in the short-term for these species, but they say that it is a natural part of the life cycle in the region. Fishermen fear they will be forced to battle with vast chunks of ice. It could also affect the macaroni penguins feeding in the area.
“Where it is destroying in one place, it’s providing nutrients and food in other places.”
While the macaroni penguins who forage on the shelf where the iceberg is stuck could be affected, scientists in Antarctica say that huge amounts of nutrients are locked inside the ice, and that as it melts, it will create an explosion of new life in the ocean.
“It’s like dropping a nutrient bomb into the middle of an empty desert,” says Professor Nadine Johnston from the British Antarctic Survey. “Without ice, we wouldn’t have these ecosystems. They are some of the most productive in the world, supporting a huge number of species and individual animals, and feeding the biggest animals in the world like the blue whale.” says Professor Huw Griffiths.
Sometimes, what looks like catastrophe, wreckage, destruction on the outside, is really full of blessing on the inside. Rather than fighting the icebergs that come crashing into the shoreline of your life, patiently wait for them to grind away until the richness that lies within the hardship and trial is revealed, creating an explosion of new life.
To ignore the refining work of the grinding trials of life would be unfaithful. It would also be unhealthy. However, we are to process what we experience through the filter of God’s Word and God’s character. That helps us, like the scientists and ecologists, to see that once everything breaks up, there will be blessings for those who are the Lord’s people.
As the Scriptures reveal, while others (or even trials) seem to be intent upon harming us, "... but God intend[s] it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20, NIV). "And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28, NIV).
Sun v Shade
... Did you know that shade doesn’t make temperatures cooler. In fact, air temperature is actually the same in the sun or shade. It’s solar radiation hitting our bodies which makes it feel hotter. On average, solar radiation makes the air feel 10 -15 degrees warmer than it actually is.
This is why official air temperature is always measured in the shade. If the thermometer were placed in the sun, the solar radiation would heat up the thermometer and the resulting temperature would be measuring the warmed up thermometer and not the air around the thermometer. -- ABC News
In the heat of the day, we run to shade for shelter -- some measure of relief from the searing radiation that makes our bodies sweat and our skin burn.
However, the exact reverse is true when we are cold and shivering. We long to step out from the shade, in the hopes of capturing any measure of warmth from the sun's rays to warm our bodies and alleviate the chill.
Scripture is repleat with references to the metaphorical, protective wings of the Lord, spread over us to shield and protect. Often times, as we duck under for cover, we find instant relief from whatever drama, trial, or tragedy has befallen us.
Yet sometimes, we step under the shelter of the Lord's wings and we find no immediate relief. We find the cold and cruelty of our circumstances "feel" no different, no warmer there.
The Lord's protection is no instant panacea, defined quite literally as "a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases." As often as not, the Lord's "protection" will take us through the cold hard trial, rather than around it.
Corrie ten Boom, a WWII concentration camp survivor, in her acclaimed book, The Hiding Place, described the pain of standing for hours, at attention before her Nazi captors, in the freezing cold of the pre-dawn hours, or huddled on the wooden bunks, sharing blankets and body heat against the crippling chill of the winter nights in captivity. Why was there no relief from her cold, hard trials? Where, in those moments, were the wings of God's protection?
They were spread wide over her, just as He promised!
Speaking of their times gathered around a small, smuggled bible, she would write,
Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors ... It was not a wish. It was a fact.
We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not 'we shall be.' We are!
Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory."
Indeed, in the cruelest of firey trials or chilling challenges, His wings are spread over us. Though we often find no immediate relief for our circumstances, we can (and DO!) find relief for our souls!
"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless" (Psalm 84:11, NIV).
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills [his purpose] for me" (Psalm 57:1, ESV).
“Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the SHADOW of thy wings” (Psalm 17:8, NIV)
Don't Throw In The Towel (Errr, The Sock)
Did you know that China produces, markets, and distributes more socks than any other country in the world?TheFlag.com reports:
When you put on your socks in the morning, there’s a good chance that unless you knit them yourself they came from somewhere outside of the United States. Roughly one-third of the time the socks came from China. In fact, the Datang District in eastern China is one of the top sock producers in the world and has been aptly named, “Sock City.”
Because they are produced in such volume, and by means of cheap labor and often inferior materials, these socks are more affordable, often pushing other manuafacturers right out of the market. Listen to one man's experience:
A number of years ago, around 2008, sock manufacturers in South Africa faced a huge challenge in their business of selling socks. Extremely cheap and of poor quality ... Chinese imports were flooding the market, making it difficult for local sock companies to survive. These companies were in distress ... and as a result, most closed down. Our very own Millennium Socks was one of those companies. Those were extremely trying times in the industry.
One company though refused to throw in the towel ... [knowing] that to compete they had to do something different. Falke South Africa realized that they had to respond strategically to the challenge they faced, or their business would die. They made the decision [to] continue in business, but to change the way they approached the market.
They developed a niche market for their product by deciding not to compromise on the quality of their product. They took the step and committed themselves to the task at hand … Falke South Africa, over the last 10yrs has increased its staff by 50%, and in 2017 sold 17 million pairs of socks and fine hosiery. They are now planning to expand into Australia, all because, in a hard time of distress and despair, they made the decision to focus on what was to be done, without compromise, and they have more than survived, they have become a great success.
As Christians, we must know that a time of distress or despair is NOT the time to throw in the towel. It is the time to take decisive action and shore up our resolve to "focus on what must be done without compromise." Only in this way will we not just survive, but thrive.
"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV).
"Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong" (I Corinthians 16:13, ESV).