St. George Island State Park, St. George Island, Florida
By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry. ~ Genesis 8:13-14
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but recent scripture has been telling parts of Noah’s story. Today, I wanted to point out that Noah, his family and the animals spent more than a year inside the ark! A big part of this lesson for us, is that Noah spent seven months after the water stopped flowing, still waiting on God’s timing.
Waiting. For a long time. In uncomfortable circumstances. Waiting in the noise and the smell. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
Oftentimes, we too must wait on God’s timing. Speaking for myself, I don’t usually wait very well. And yet, I believe that’s one of the main lessons the Old Testament men of faith would teach us.
Noah waited almost a year to get out of the ark. Abraham waited 25 years for his promised son. Isaac waited 20 years for a child. Jacob waited seven years for the wife he loved. Joseph waited in prison for two years. Moses waited 40 years wandering in the desert. David waited at least 15 years before he became the king God promised him he’d be. Job suffered for an undisclosed amount of time, but certainly it was longer than a few days. Isaiah waited 60 years for the Israelites to listen to him, but they never did. Jeremiah waited 40 years for them to listen, and was persecuted while he waited for something that never happened until well after his death. The Israelites waited 400 years between the Old and New Testament times for God to speak to them again. The world waited thousands of years for the promised Messiah.
And we wait. We wait for the Second Coming of Christ Jesus. We wait for our personal prayers to be answered. We wait for the promotion, or the child, or the healing. We wait. Most often longer than we think we should.
No one likes waiting.
But God’s plan and God’s timing is perfect. Always.
Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled. ~ Joshua 21:45
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. ~ II Peter 3:8-9
Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD. ~ Psalm 27:14
We spent one last day strolling the beach here on St. George Island State Park. It was a day beyond description! And once again, we ended our walk at the far end. It’s a few miles, but the time – and distance – fly by when you’re out here. I would say this is definitely one of my favorite days of all the ones we’ve been blessed to experience since we went full-time. What are some others? Well, off the top of my head, I’d say, our first kayak excursion on Lake Superior, experiencing the crashing waves at Bar Harbor, and our unplanned hike in Rocky Mountain National Park where we ended up at a waterfall. I also really enjoyed our food tour in New Orleans – not just the food, but the history and walk around town. Blaine’s list isn’t much different, except he added our kayak trip at Silver Springs, which we plan to attempt again next week.
Even though we’ve walked this stretch of beach several times, each time brought new and exciting things! Today was no different, as we discovered a miniature tree, a skate casing, a collage someone made that we added to, an inverted rainbow, and sea cucumbers. More on those when we get there.
Oh. And we picked up seashells on the way back to share with the grandkids when we go home in May. However, there is a bit of a story here about my wonderful husband. To tell it, I have to look into the future. We knew we wanted to take shells home, but we forgot to bring a bag, so all we had was Blaine’s backpack and a couple of small zipbags we keep in there to put our lunch trash in. That meant that we couldn’t pick up the six (that’s the number of grandkids we have) really large cockle shells I wanted. So once we returned home, I hopped in the Jeep and went back to the beach parking area just outside our campground, where I strolled along for a bit looking. There were none. In fact, hardly any shells at all. Of course, this was a popular place for people to enter the beach, so that’s not too surprising. So I drove on down, all the way to the shelter area where we started the bike trail the other day. My exhausted legs took me hunting, but again . . . nothing. I found two really small ones, but that’s it. I was disappointed, and dog tired, but took heart that we had lots of other things to share, and went back home. In the morning (tomorrow), Blaine told me he was taking a ride and walk on the beach alone. But he came back with eight good sized shells! Isn’t that sweet?!? I don’t know where he found them – did he walk a really long way? Did they wash up on the beach over night and he got first pick? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. The Lord gave them to Blaine, and he gave them to me, and we’ll give them to our grandchildren. 😊
Actually, it was just so we only walked two miles of beach instead of three. : )
If you remember from the other day, the worm is inside that long straight thing.
I tried and tried to find out what that ‘sculpted’ thing is. I still have no idea, but it’s fairly fragile. : (
If you shine a light through it, you can see the embryo, and sometimes,
if it’s still alive, you can see the tail swishing.
Sort of like an ultrasound for fish!
Once on vacation at Holden Beach, NC, our oldest son found one of these in the water.
We had no idea what it was at the time, but it kept changing shape! Really cool!
Wanna learn something really interesting?
Guess what they do when faced with danger.
They are able to expel their internal organs along with a toxic substance called holothurin, toward their predators. All missing organs will be regenerated in the next 1.5 to 5 weeks.
And people say there is no God!
We took this starfish home to show the kids how they regenerate their arms. 
One of them said, “I used to like you, Blaine.” lol
It didn’t turn out well, but 
This is where the inverted rainbow was shining.
Back home, it was ribs for dinner (oh. so. good!) Then Blaine watched football all evening, and I went to the back for more movies that he doesn’t care to watch. 😊
God has truly blessed us in this place! We hope you’ve been blessed as well!