I’m writing this from 30,000 feet. We have a perfectly clear, sunny day for our return flight home. The view is majestic. It never ends. I never get tired of it. In fact, in between these sentences, I keep glancing over to make sure I don’t miss anything.

So far we have crossed three states, and the Rocky Mountains are well within view. The features below that would be so impressive when viewed from the ground are reduced to small bumps and lines.

Still pretty impressive.

The theme of the week for me seems to have been how everything works together. All that God has made is impressive enough on its own merit, but then when you consider how it all works together, all the more astounding.

I am seeing some of that from this 6-mile-high vantage point. The mountains very noticeably channel water from their tops to the surrounding area at the bottom. You can see “veins” where the water travels. On the more desert regions, the “arms” of the tributaries spread far out into the flat areas below the mountains. I can’t fully put it into words, but from up here, I can just see more clearly how everything works together.

This week as we paid several visits to the Pacific coast, we just kept marveling at the waves. They just never stopped. They were beautiful, and powerful all by themselves. But to see how they were bringing in the kelp for the birds and insects to eat, as well as cleaning out other things, like old shells. And it never stops. Wave after wave after wave. Constantly renewing itself.

The birds and otters were fun to watch too. They enjoyed the surf as much as we do. They would face into a wave, then duck down under it and come up on the other side. (Presumably to get some food, as well as to avoid a serious thrashing if they stayed above the water!)

We also found out this week that Pacific Grove is called Butterfly Village, USA. (Or something like that…) Monarch butterflies winter there. The big cool orange ones. They fly down from Canada each year and spend the winter in Pacific Grove’s warmer climate. Now, the problem is, those particular butterflies can’t have any idea how to get there. They are the fourth generation of butterflies that left Pacific Grove the previous summer. The generation that travels to Pacific Grove lives 8 months, so they can make the long journey, and survive the winter. The others only live for 6 weeks. So there are 3 generations born up north that live 6 weeks, and the fourth then travels back to Pacific Grove. But how do they know where to go? The question was posed on an information board in the Monarch Habitat and simply answered, “We don’t know.” We have ideas, but we really don’t know.

Everything just seems to work together.

All week I kept thinking of the verse in Colossians that says that Jesus holds all things together. All of this makes a lot of sense when you just accept that verse at face value. An amazing Creator made all of this stuff to work together, and he continues to make it work togehter. Incredible.

We had such a great time seeing it happen right before our eyes this week. God is so amazing, and his creation is just one small testament to that.