Jeana’s Journal

We took a vacation last week and visited The Grand Canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

About sixty miles south of the South Rim is a little town of Williams. There is a vintage train there that daily makes the journey–very slowly–to the South Rim. We were among the passengers last Thursday.

The landscape for miles around the Grand Canyon is desert. It is monotonous and unremarkable. Then suddenly there is a glimpse of the Canyon and you can’t believe your eyes. It is more than “grand” and bigger than ever imagined.

When we finally stood on the edge of the Rim there was total silence among those looking on and over the edge. The grandeur of that gigantic canyon is beyond words. How and whatever happened here is beyond my limited understanding.

As I stood speechless on the edge of the Rim, the words of a hymn, “The Mighty God,” began to play in my head. The presence of the words to that hymn were unbidden and yet they seemed appropriate for the view before us.

Whenever I see something remarkable in nature, such as The Grand Canyon, I always think about the first human who ever saw it. He probably jumped up and down and said “I have got to show this to someone.” At least that would be my reaction.

I was there with my four sisters for our yearly four or five days together. As you can see, the five of us look unrelated and yet we are connected on such a basic level that when one of us hurts, the other four feel it.

In the everyday circle of our daily lives:  a stay-at-home mom, an accountant, an elementary school teacher, a landscape gardener and a quilter, we would never cross paths or even find interests in common. Yet here we are sisters from birth and still joined to each other in a way so deep that the connections can never be severed.

When we were young we fought on an almost daily basis and I am sure our mother despaired of our ever being civil to each other, let alone be friends. It would make her very happy to see us now and know that not only are we friends, we honor her with love and respect for each other.