We finally saw Alaska this year. Along with my husband Charlie and some good friends, we fished for salmon, hiked through the Pacific rain forest, and traveled by skiff along the Inside Passage.
The highlight of our trip was the Mendenhall Glacier. We drove to a lookout point for our first view. Surrounded by a placid lake, the glacier flows out of the mountains, empties into the lake and looms majestically from the water. Large icebergs that have “calved” from glacier float in the icy lake.
In color it was a vivid, translucent blue. “Glacier blue” didn’t originate with the ’69 Camero. It originated in the mind of God when He painted a glacier.
We were up for adventure so some friends introduced us to Debbie Douglass, a kayak instructor and guide. Debbie agreed to loan us a kayak and lead us out on the lake for a close-up look at the glacier. First, let me explain that I have never been in a kayak. So before we could get in one, Debbie took us through safety tips. She had my rapt attention when she started out with, “If your kayak tips over you have about 15 minutes before hypothermia sets in.” The survival procedures she went through are still a blur—something about turning my kayak right-side-up as quickly as possible, hoisting myself up so that my belly is on the kayak while I swing my legs (with my hiking boots on) around to get myself back into that little hole As a final step I was to use the handy manual pump to extract the water from inside my kayak. Any one of those activities sounded like it would use up my entire 15 minutes. Dragging my kayak down to the water’s edge all I could think was, “Fawn, you’re going to die.”
They were two person kayaks. Charlie wanted up front so he could get good photos. I wanted in back so I could control the rudder. We both paddled. I was content to paddle smooth and slow. Charlie paddled like we were contestants in The Amazing Race. Every time he pulled back on the ore, the kayak rocked.
“Sweetheart, would you please not rock the boat? I’m a little frightened back here.” He tried, but was focused on the scenery and his camera. I was focused on keeping the kayak upright. It rhythmically tipped to the right then the left every time his ore hit the water. As we got further from shore and started passing between icebergs, I was finding it hard to breathe. My gentle reminders soon turned to furious outbursts. He kept shooting pictures, jerking the ores and tipping the kayak.
Our guide had warned us to keep our distance from the icebergs. “They can roll over and pull your kayak in.” Charlie wanted a closer shot of the birds sitting on the iceberg and turned around (which made the kayak dip sideways) to say, “Get in closer to the iceberg!” I turned the rudder in that direction slightly. “More!” Charlie had stopped paddling but now he was digging into his gear to change lenses! The kayak took a big dip to the right then the left. I yelled back, “NO. I’m not going closer. AND STOP ROCKING THIS KAYAK!”
It’s funny how your voice carries on the water. I heard my own panicked words. I had a decision to make. I was either going to scream at Charlie for the next hour and miss the adventure of a lifetime, or I could relax and trust the Lord. I remembered one of my sessions from the faith retreat that Debi and I teach, “Keep your eyes on the Who.” Until now, my eyes had been drilling a laser through the rain coat on Charlie’s back. I took a deep breath, and thought, “Lord, you are sovereign over this kayak and you are in this boat with us. You are omnipotent; all-powerful to protect; merciful and faithful. And as I exhaled in faith, lifting my eyes to heaven I added (with not a little bit of drama from the book of Esther), “If I perish, I perish.” 
As our kayak continued rocking and tipping its way across the lake, Charlie took these photographs. And me? I turned my attention to the creative majesty of God, who carves and paints a glacier and then floats out with me to admire it.
