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Took a day's retreat at Ubin with congie today.
Jiggled my thighs to bits cycling along those dirt trails, hoping to see my very first wild boar.
(I did not see one, by the way)
Amidst the enjoying of each others' company, and catching up on some reading; most of the hours were spent doing nothing - otherwise, I'd miss the whole point of a retreat, wouldn't I?
And, there were those moments.
Like the one where we watched the sea be everything a sea should be from the back porch of some rundown colonial cottage in Chek Jawa.
Or the one we sat silent on the pier, under the rain, risking lightning cracking on our skulls, to seek God. It was in the stillness, watching nature cavorting itself around me, that I so desperately wanted to "taste and see that the Lord is good".
But it was in the return journey, when we started biking back to the ferry terminal, that I saw a beautiful analogy of lives - Of my life, of yours, of Solomon's when he was emo-ing in Ecclesiastes.
We had just went through a series of cycling up slopes and I was well into exhaustion, when we made a small turn, and I found myself looking at this STEEP incline.
I barely made it up a few metres, before getting off the bike and pushing it. Undignified.
And when we made it to the top, I glanced up from my pantings and saw in the distance yet another sharp incline about a hundred metres ahead.
I let out a very dismayed, "wah lau!", and was starting to complain to congie when he just said to me,
"It's beautiful, huh?".
And I turned my head and saw one of the ubin quarries in the distance below us. The sun was just about to set, and the water was this amazing tinge of turquoise. We were looking at it from a distance, and it looked so unspoiled. It truly was beautiful.
"Let's pause for a moment here", he said. "Isn't this just like life?"
And I couldn't agree more.
The quarry was a perfect picture of serenity and rest - And a portrait of a loving God.
Where we'd struggle, all worn out, up the steep climb, only to be faced with yet another climb ahead of us... Jesus meets us right in the middle. He calls us to come to Him to be refreshed. In the stillness, know that He. Is. God.
