Away in the woods, the rain drove us together into our camper. The situation was caustic and quickly became volatile. Before I could intervene, a flying cup of tea from the hand of one child aimed at another ignited my inner furnace. Rage swelled in my veins.

The first rule of a father is this, never forget this: in your justice do no harm.

But rather than a surgeon, I'm a weak man trying desperately to keep my inner villain in check. I lost the battle in a moment and gave in to a rage and turned my strength on those I'm meant to protect. I'll never forget the betrayal I saw in his tear blurred eyes looking back at me as I tried to reconcile. I smoldered in rage and shuddered in regret. This priceless child, Isaiah: God is salvation. God- Authority and judge. He who used his strength to heal and reconcile at unspeakable cost to himself. God is salvation, how will this be made right?

We needed space, so I left. A walk in the mountain rains has a mysterious effect on a weary soul. I crested a ridge and stood before a landscape I can only describe as magnificent. The rain had done its work and the green forest meadow was nothing short of luminescent. The scene danced before me in elegant beauty washed by the storms...and I hated it.

There was a rage within me at the beauty. My soul was dissonant, and this beauty seemed of another universe, one I could not reach; was unworthy of. Thunder rolled over my head and I was immediately in the moment long ago when a Heavenly Father claimed his son — whom he loves and with whom he is well pleased. Could this also be me? My son? Still, I couldn't draw my gaze away from the landscape. I looked deeper into the scene. Before me, in the midst of the magnificent greens and turquoise of new life lay years of dead, decaying trees. Some beetle kill, some storms, some fires; all tragedies written on the forest floor. It was the dead and broken intertwined with the beautiful and alive. And I saw an image of myself, and softened in the hope of this discovery:

Redemption is the dance of the now, and the yet to come.
A promise of a future harmony breaking out in the dissonance of the now.