Finding Rest

"[Jesus] said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'" -Mark 6:31

Lilias Trotter was a missionary in Africa at the turn of the 20th century.  She wrote this about the desert:  "Oh, the desert is lovely in its restfulness.  The great brooding stillness over and through everything is so full of God.  One does not wonder that He used to take His people out into the wilderness to teach them."

This was my reaction, too, the first time I was taken out into the desert in Arizona.  I, who love English cottage gardens and woods full of ferns, was quite surprised by how much I loved the desert.  I do not love hot weather and no shade, but the desert has its own beauty that this photo does not begin to capture.  Perhaps it's the vastness that Lilias speaks of--it is the "great brooding stillness..... so full of God."

I am grateful for the hot, dry desert because even there God shows me His majesty.