Fierce Beauty (10 page)

We all know that covering up our problems won’t solve them. Neither will attempting to bury them under an avalanche of feel-good procedures, treatments, and programs. We can’t heal our sin on the inside by simply looking better on the outside. No external polishing can cure an internal rot.

There’s no regime of eating right, healthy living, or exercise habits that will make the damage from our sin cease. There’s no combination of righteous living, volunteering, mission trips, or good deeds that can stave off its evil seep. There’s no medication on earth that can cure it. There’s no amount of sex, drinking, or drugs that can mask its effects. There’s no distraction in fantasy books, movies, romance novels, video games, texting, Facebook messaging, tweeting, blogging, or online chatting that can negate sin’s presence in our lives. There’s no amount of cutting, burning, tattooing, piercing, binging, purging, or starving that can camouflage the pain we feel inside.

If you feel as if you’re reading about yourself in Dakota’s story—pierced, broken, with an arrow of sin in your life that you can’t remove—know that there is a remedy. There is
one
hope.

God’s Word says, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24–25).

If you feel alone in your pain or pride, realize that you’re not. Scripture tells us, “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins” (Romans 3:23–24). We all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.

Perhaps David said it best in one of his most beloved psalms: “I prayed to the L
ORD
, and he answered me, freeing me from
all
my fears.… The L
ORD
hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from
all
their troubles. The L
ORD
is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit” (34:4, 17–18). “Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. In my desperation I prayed, and the L
ORD
listened; he saved me from
all
my troubles” (verses 5–6,
NLT
, 2007).

The healing truth of God’s Word declares that “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” and “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong” (Romans 10:13; 1 John 1:9). If you feel pierced, there is One who wants to give you forgiveness, cleansing, and redemption. All you need to do is fall on your knees and ask.

Friend, there is
no
arrow that the unfailing love of Jesus cannot remove.

Editor’s Note:
Read more about Kelsie in the story “A Perfect Match,” found in Kim’s book
Hope Rising;
about Laurie and her dog Mia in Kim’s book
Blind Hope;
and about Sarah in the story “Run Through Fire” in
Hope Rising
.

I love my ranch staff. They’re some of my dearest friends, and I consider them my family. Because they hail from across the United States, I’m passionate about introducing them to the marvels of this wild, western world. It’s my delight to take them back-country skiing, surfing, mountaineering, horse packing, rock climbing, night snowshoeing, marathon running, snorkeling, and various other forms of adventuring and exploring.

Of all the precious gems the Northwest has to offer, perhaps the most extraordinary is Yellowstone National Park. If you’d like to discover our God of wonders in a no-words-can-describe way, Yellowstone is a must-see. I’m certain the word
amazing
was coined there.

Because it gives me great joy to share my passions with those I love, a handful of my staff and I decided to do a whirlwind trip to this Serengeti of North America. Since it was September and our ranch season was still in full swing, we needed to make the trip as quickly as possible. This meant we would blitz the twelve-hour drive in one day, have two full days in the park, and then bolt home again. Taking in the whole park in two days is simply not possible, but jet-propelled by a ton of coffee, we were determined to try!

Our plan was to spend the first day viewing as much geothermal activity as we could squeeze in. The second day would be devoted to seeing as many animals as we could locate between dawn and dusk.

I’ve visited Yellowstone during many different seasons, and it
never
disappoints. My girls’ initial wide-eyed responses confirmed that this trip would be no exception. After a full day of viewing all the massive geysers, steaming ponds, burbling mud pots, and exquisitely colored pools that we could mash in between sunup and sundown, we bundled up and fell into our sleeping bags. Like expectant treasure hunters, we vowed to rise early with the wildlife the following day in hopes of seeing something incredible.

The next morning we woke up to the high-country phenomenon known as “tent snow.” It was so cold during the night that our respiration froze into thin white sheets of ice that clung perilously to the
inside
of our tents. After pausing only long enough to brew some joe, we filled our travel mugs to the brim and set off. My truck was loaded with five girls; four more rode in another car behind us. I thrust my small camera out the window, wordlessly asking everyone in the car behind me if they had theirs handy. Four little thumbs shot up enthusiastically.

With hands full of coffee and cameras, we were good to go. To fan the fires of anticipation, I tossed a question to the girls in my truck: “If you could see
any
animal that lives in this park, which would you choose?”

Kelsie, who sat next to me in the center of the front seat, immediately answered with a monstrous grin, “If I saw a bear, I’d be so excited that I just might pee in my pants!” Laughter erupted when I told her to move to the backseat so I wouldn’t have to share in that experience.

While winding our way up 8,859-foot Dunraven Pass, we rounded a turn on a particularly steep slope and were surprised by a traffic jam. Of course, that’s Yellowstone language for “Stop here! There’s something fun to see!” As we carefully threaded our way through the bottleneck of parked cars and people milling about to find the best view, I asked some folks what was causing all the commotion. One pointed nearly straight up toward the ridge above us and said, “There’s a
grizzly bear
!” Upon hearing those words, Kelsie nearly leaped out the window like a dog after a Frisbee. Lucky for me, she did
not
make good on her earlier promise, and we both exited the truck with dry jeans.

Sure enough, approximately one hundred yards up the mountainside was a subadult grizzly. The bruin appeared to be taking great joy in climbing up small pine trees, breaking the entire top off, and then raiding the pine cones for nuts. The delight I took in watching the bear was completely eclipsed by the deep satisfaction of watching
Kelsie
watch the bear. My friend’s feet scarcely touched the ground. After the bear ambled out of sight and everyone loaded back into the truck, voices excitedly overlapped as five girls talked at once about the thrill of seeing a Yellowstone grizzly.

A quarter mile up the road we came upon another traffic jam. This time it was caused by a mother black bear with two small cubs. Because she had taken her youngsters below the road into thick underbrush, the mother bear and her family were more difficult to watch. Yet it was still a thrill to see flashes of jet black among the deep green forest. Several times the cubs rolled into view as they wrestled and played around their mother. They seemed oblivious to the ecstatic commotion that their presence aroused in all who witnessed them. Again we piled back into the truck. Kelsie looked at me with a grin that barely fit on her face. “I could go home right now!” she said. “Already this has been so amazing!”

As our day rolled on, it seemed around every turn the Lord blessed us with something incredible to behold. We viewed waterfalls so delicate they fell like angel’s breath, while others roared with enough power to shake the earth. Our little caravan came across deer, antelope, and elk napping in the sun. Herds of bison moved like slow, black rivers through the valleys and occasionally washed over the roadways in front of us, creating delightful traffic jams of their own.

About midday the other carload of girls decided they wanted to detour into the town of West Yellowstone to warm up and walk through some of the artisan shops. With parting hugs we sent them on their way and continued our exploration of all things inside the borders of the park.

We paused in the small town of Mammoth to stretch our legs. While there, we discovered that each grassy area between the buildings boasted
groups of grazing elk. As we viewed a particularly massive male, a ranger told us we were fortunate to be witnessing the largest bull elk in the park. We’d just missed seeing him defend his herd against an unfortunate suitor who was sulking nearby.

He was unquestionably the most massive bull I’d ever seen. He seemed to revel in the fact that we were so taken by him. After strutting across the road right in front of us, he displayed his power by lowering his enormous antlers to the ground, violently swinging his head from side to side, and destroying everything in his path. Huge chunks of grass filled the air as he physically demonstrated to all other bulls, “Guys, you don’t want
any
of this!”

After a bit of hiking around Mammoth Hot Springs, we arrived at Willow Park just as dusk approached. Perhaps because we had seen so many spectacular sights already, we were certain that any minute a moose would roam into view.

Willow Park is a riparian area approximately two miles long. It runs parallel to and slightly lower than the road we drove on. The “park” is basically a high, narrow meadow with streams meandering through its length. Since willow thrives particularly well here, so does a healthy moose population.

After completing several mooseless passes, we stopped at all the turnouts and scrutinized each brown stream bank, log, and stump. We were sure that every distant, dark form had the potential to be a moose sighting. Thankfully, the park was empty of cars, so we were able to continue our inspection at about five miles an hour. At one point we even pulled off, and two of the girls hopped out in hopes of taking a game trail that descended to the creek in order to get a closer look at what might be coming to drink.

As the girls started into the tall willows, I felt a strong warning to call them back to the safety of our vehicle. The animals in Yellowstone are large and wild. Surprising them on a narrow game trail at dusk would not be a good idea.

To oblige my mother-bear instincts, the girls loaded back into the truck in the same order they’d ridden all day. Kelsie slid into the front seat beside me with Laurie next to her and the passenger door. Not wanting to miss any action by stopping for dinner, we opted instead for a ritual ranch tradition—we raided whatever we could find under the seats. As buried snacks emerged, so did the jokes about who was willing to eat what and how long it’d been down there.

I’m still the reigning diner when it comes to eating dodgy, found-under-the-seat cuisine. I managed to find a petrified pack of red licorice, while Kels and Laurie located a more nutritious offering of string cheese and crackers. Kelsie grabbed a handful and sent the rest into the backseat. Then she transformed into a cheese-eating machine.

Just as I was about to warn her not to mistakenly bite my arm, a flash of movement caught my eye. To my astonishment two grizzly cubs galloped across the road just thirty feet in front of us!

I was so excited I couldn’t get any words out. The best I could manage was to stammer, point, and finally shout, “Bears!”

The cubs were not ambling or trotting. They were running as fast as little bears could go. They darted across the pavement, scaled an eight-foot embankment on our left, and began bounding up a very steep hill. To get a better view, I quickly rolled the truck up the road to the exact location where they’d crossed in front of us.

Then, before I could watch the babies,
Mom
galloped out of the brush with a third cub on her heels. She was so close she nearly brushed the front of our truck. Her sheer size left me incredulous. The bear’s body was larger than some of the smaller horses on our ranch. Yet, despite her mass and power, her ears were down in a submissive position. Something had threatened these bears enough to make them believe they were in mortal danger. The mother was clearly hustling her family to safety. I watched the muscles of her back and shoulders ripple under her thick, glossy pelt. She was beautiful!

Still at a dead run, she looked over her shoulder once and then, in a
single leap, jumped up the same embankment her two cubs had just climbed and continued sprinting up the hill with the third cub in tow. I watched in slack-jawed awe as she bounded up the steep ridge.