Water. Falls.

I usually begin planning vacations months and months before going. I set the date, buy tickets, make reservations, and do all the rearranging and arranging that goes into leaving work and home.

The vacation is set on the calendar not knowing what will be at the center of my life when I actually go.

My first trip to Iceland was weeks after the Tax Day flood and the two feet flooding of my home.

My second trip to Iceland was weeks after the Harvey flood and the five feet flooding of my home.

Iceland, with it’s beauty and awayness, is many things for me. It appears that at the heart of my trips here is that Iceland is a place for me to heal.

Yesterday, we traveled east to hike to waterfalls. Goðafoss. Dettifoss. Selfoss.

In the midst of roaring water, rocky and uneven paths, under a blue beyond imagination sky, the tears finally came about this last flooding of my my home and the homes of so very many others. Finally I was able to begin the next steps of healing. I will say that God and I had some very serious chats about what in the world God was doing in this terrible catastrophe.

The last place we visited yesterday before going back to our hotel was a church that was built very near Goðafoss to commemorate the one thousand year anniversary of Iceland accepting Christianity. Tradition has it that when the king of Iceland decided to make Christianity the nation’s official religion, he threw the pagan idols into the waters of Goðafoss.

The waterfall where a people gave up their past ways and turned completely to God is where my tears of grief and anger over yet another flood began to flow at the beginning of this day’s travels. When I ended the day’s travels was at the cross built outside the church nearby praying words of Compline,