Fierce Beauty (20 page)

Our guide beckoned us to help him haul inflatable kayaks and waterproof gear from a cache hidden in the thick alders. Everyone was needed to prepare the boats for paddling across the frozen lake to a vantage point where we could fully view the magnificent glory of the Grewingk Glacier.

As we inflated our boats, a thunderous sound pierced the frigid air. Sensing danger, everyone stopped moving and looked in the direction of the hidden glacier. Even though this gargantuan river of ice was approximately two miles away, our guide walked to the water’s edge and casually drew a line in the sand. Returning to our spot on the shore, he smiled and said, “Watch. In a few minutes you’ll see a mini-tsunami wash over this line.”

As we continued our preparation, we heard an ominous roar echo out of the chasm. It was the sound of waves rushing toward us, crashing against the canyon walls as they came. Just as our guide had said, several moments later a series of small waves, the greatest being about three feet high, lapped up around us.

I looked across the immense gray waters in pure wonder. My mind reeled at the thought of just how
much
falling ice it took to displace this much water—this far away. Tiny needles of alarm prickled up the back of my scalp.

Though Joan and I own kayaks and are experienced paddlers, we agreed that piloting an inflatable kayak is a whole different experience. It was a bit eerie to sit down in what felt like a soft, shaky, twisty boat—in ice water. Since the prow of an inflatable kayak is longer than the back and I’m taller, I settled onto the front floor. Once I was balanced, Joan gingerly climbed into the back. With a careful push off the rocks, we were on our way.

It was intimidating to sit on the floor of the boat and know that my
backside was inches below the frigid water’s surface. In this soft-sided, tippy kayak, only a few inches of rubber rose above the water level to keep us safe. The flexible boat seemed much more precarious and wobbly than a hard-sided kayak. Yet after a few practice turns, we were able to gain a feel for our craft and its balance point.

In addition to our guide, our small team consisted of a husband and wife in one kayak and a mother and daughter in another. I noticed the submissive mother trying her best to make the experience a special memory for her daughter. Sadly, the dominant, spoiled teenager made it equally clear that her mother was “making” her do this. When our guide gave them a brief tutorial on how to balance, paddle, and steer, the daughter didn’t even try. My sorrow for the mother was overshadowed by an ominous sense of caution. This was not a forgiving environment for selfish apathy.

After learning a few simple but sobering safety precautions, our armada of four little boats set out into the vast, milky waters.

Once we fell into a smooth paddling rhythm, I had time to process the words of our guide. In all his years he’d never lost anyone, nor had anyone fallen into the lake. He assured our group that he was practiced at his “retrieving” skills, rehearsed with other guides, and could pull victims out of the frigid water in less than a minute. This was good information to know since he’d also told us that if you go into the water, you have approximately three minutes to live.

We were forewarned that turning around in these soft kayaks was forbidden, because the shift of a single torso could pull the entire boat over. Therefore, all cameras—including mine—had to be stowed to prevent the temptation to twist around for shots. Being careful not to rotate too much, I spoke to my dear friend over my shoulder as we paddled slightly ahead of the group.

Even though I was heavily dressed in waterproof gear, it took only moments for me to notice a sharp lowering of the air temperature. My breath had transformed into white wisps that streamed back over both of my shoulders.

Drifting in an unseen current a few hundred yards to our right, a virtual parade of mammoth icebergs seemed to flaunt their spectacular beauty. Shaped by the merciless elements, each statuesque form appeared to revel in its unique display of graceful artistry.

Soon our small group crossed the expanse of the lake and approached the dogleg. Here, an audacious length of smooth, glacier-scoured granite formed a bend in the massive lake. As our guide spoke of the cataclysmic forces that had shaped this landscape, Joan and I drifted slightly beyond the stretch of granite that blocked our view of the glacier. As we looked down the mile-long hallway of rising stone, the grandeur of Grewingk Glacier came into full view.

Neither of us could speak.

We stared at the towering mass, barely hearing the voice of our guide. Pure awe overwhelmed us. A solid wall of ice soared three hundred feet straight up and spanned more than a mile in width. This was the mighty terminus of thirteen miles of moving ice.

Having finished his description, our guide began to lead the other two boats toward Joan and me. Suddenly sounds like sharp cracks of lightning thundered in a deafening series of booms from the glacier.

Joan and I turned and watched in astonishment as the leading edge of the glacier began to collapse. Walls of ice as high as a thirty-story building were falling!

In what looked like slow motion, more than one thousand horizontal feet of the face began to shear away. Rushing down and forward, the titanic slab of ice hit the water and exploded into a massive plume of ice crystals.

From it rose a wave that we could see even at our distance. Our guide, coming out from behind the granite, saw only the last phase of the fall.

“Oh my gosh!” he shouted. “Oh my gosh!
Oh my gosh!
In my twelve years as a guide here, this is the largest fall I’ve ever seen. Oh my gosh! Come, everyone, follow me. We must get away from the shore. Quickly, quickly! We must get out into the deep water. Follow me
now
!”

In a rapid series of strokes, Joan and I were fifty yards offshore. We turned our boat to see if the others were with us. The married couple seemed to be managing well. But the mother-daughter team in the other boat was struggling to move forward at all. The daughter appeared to rebel at her mother’s insistent urging and simply refused to paddle.

Looking back at the glacier, I watched in rising alarm as icebergs half a mile away were lifted into the air by the rushing swell passing under them. The daughter’s poor behavior had moved from annoying … to deadly.

With cool authority covering his rising distress, the guide swiftly paddled back to the imperiled family and implored them to work together. As precious time was rapidly running out, the guide pointed his paddle blade at the girl and firmly stated, “
You
, paddle with her
right now
! You’re in a dangerous place, and you must move! Follow me
right now
!”

To everyone’s great relief, the girl sobered up and responded. Quickly we were all reunited in deeper water.

Hastily turning toward the approaching wave, our guide said, “Do not try to outrun the waves—you can’t. By attempting to, you will be overtaken and capsized. Instead, do the opposite of what you feel.
Turn directly into them
and paddle
through
them. Everyone’s going to be fine. It’s time for us to enjoy the show.”

Joan and I turned our kayak perpendicular to the advancing wave and held a ready position for what might happen next.

Having relocated in the main channel, we were surrounded by the fringe of the iceberg field. The wave was fifty yards away, then forty, then thirty. As it approached, the icebergs directly in front of us rose ominously.

Twenty yards. Ten yards.

Our boat began to rise. Joan and I paddled steadily forward as the ice all around us lifted. The first wave rolled underneath us.

As we looked at the shore where we’d just been, the shallow granite reef forced the wave to rise to perhaps a dozen feet, then curl over like an
enormous ocean breaker. As it did so, it carried truck-size blocks of ice onto the rocks. Crushed by the weight of the waves hitting the stone, the ice blocks exploded into countless pieces.

As bigger icebergs were fractured and their weight and buoyancy displaced, the immediate imbalance made them quickly roll over. In doing so they threw off their own dislodged members in a spectacular and terrifying hail of enormous ice blocks. Intensified by the granite reef, the wave easily carried the truck-size ice chunks up into the alder groves
above
the rocks.

Had we stayed in what appeared to be the relative safety of the shallow reef, we all would have been crushed to death.

With each boat and paddler accounted for, our guide directed our attention back in the direction of the glacier. Another sizable wave was rushing toward us. Again I watched in mouth-agape awe as massive icebergs bobbed like toys in the tub of a raucous child. In another dazzling display of pure power, more ice was pulverized against the reef, flung through the air, and deposited far beyond the shoreline into the alders. By the end of the event, we had survived not one wave—but
seven
.

By now we could see that fully one third of the glacier’s immense face had been sheared away. There, beneath the older, dilapidated facade, lay something beautiful, something extraordinary.

Where once stood an ancient, deteriorating mass of dirt-encrusted ice now towered a vertical wall of deep blue so intense that I didn’t know such a rich color even existed. It had been there all along. This remarkable color had been buried beneath years of rubble that had slowly piled on from above. It wasn’t until the crusty exterior was broken off that the true inner beauty was revealed.

Later in the day, while we paddled back to our starting point, my King’s perspective of what we had encountered began to sink in.

I had just witnessed what genuine forgiveness looks like.

Forgiveness is not passive. It isn’t only a feeling we cast toward others who’ve hurt us. Real forgiveness is an
action
.

The ultimate release from any hardship can be found in the same direction every time. Our help will always come, not from running
away
from our troubles, but by running
toward
our King.

Smiling to myself, I realized the extraordinary, laserish, intense blue that lay hidden deep within the glacier could have come to light only through the shearing off of the soiled crust. Our friendships also have this remarkable potential, but few choose to work through the hard “crust” to find it. Revealing this rare inner quality isn’t easy, but it
is
worth the risk. If forgiveness requires a painful “shearing” to reveal the deep beauty of my King’s purpose, I no longer wish to cling to my yucky crust. I choose to let it go.

While carefully paddling back through the icebergs, I was roused out of my thoughts by an unfamiliar sound. It was as if the very water itself were snapping. With care, I glanced around to determine what was happening. I noticed that we were paddling through slush, the crushed remnants of what was once the face of the glacier. Ice that had been imprisoned by immeasurable compression for nearly a thousand years was now free. As it was released into the water, it began to decompress in a vast and astonishing chorus of clicks, pops, and snaps, like the echo of an infinite bowl of Rice Krispies. I couldn’t help thinking that the newly freed ice was so grateful that it was
laughing
. It was a beautiful sound.

As I paddled with my dear friend in our flimsy kayak deep in the Alaskan wilderness, I continued to process all that had happened. In trying to fathom what I’d seen and heard, my mind connected the dots to a favorite old song by my friend Geoff Moore. The lyrics began to stream through my soul:

Forgiveness is a purposeful decision to let go of our years of rubble. Healing happens when we choose to honestly release the record of wrongs trapped within our hearts. When we do, the walls of our ugly justification collapse into oblivion in a thundering roar.

Yet releasing our personal dam is only the first step. The instant we let go of our walls, the waves of challenge
will
come.

Whether the swells that rush toward us are annoying or terrifying, our decision to forgive another will almost always be immediately challenged by feelings of “They haven’t changed,” “They’re not sorry,” “They don’t really care,” and “They’re still getting their barbs in.” We’ve all experienced waves that rush our way to capsize our newfound freedom.

Like the conflicted mother and daughter at Grewingk Glacier, we have to
want
to work together to paddle out of the danger zone. Every time the waves of confrontation rise to challenge my new forgiveness, I hear them disparage, “See! They
didn’t …
They
haven’t …
They
won’t …
” I must choose to paddle through them by proclaiming, “Yeah, but Jesus did! So I will!”

Forgiveness is rarely a singular action but rather a process. In most situations we will need to forgive again and again. Rest in the assurance that repeating waves of anger and negativity that rush our way will only serve to wash away any resentment still lingering within our hearts. It’s these waves that come from our enemy
after
we forgive that help us choose to
continue
to forgive.

Likewise, if we try to outrun the swells of challenge, we will eventually be overtaken and destroyed by them. It’s only when we choose to turn toward these waves and paddle
through
them that we’ll fully embrace our choice to remain free from the prison of unforgiveness.