The Cave

Father's Day has always been an interesting holiday for me. Being that my father and mother have been divorced as long back as I can recall and now lives on the other side of the country, celebrating such a day has been hard, physically and mentally. I honestly had to ask someone "What day is Father's Day?" one time when they started talking about what they were getting Dad for his big day - I've had no need to keep track of the date of a holiday I can't celebrate. But anyway.
My mom's boyfriend is a dad, and so yesterday my mom, sister and I, along with my mom's boyfriend and his two kids, went up to the Ape Caves for a hike. At first I didn't think I would enjoy myself - earth science is not my thing, and neither is hiking - but I changed my mind pretty darn quick as soon as I entered the mouth of the cave.
WOW, it was beautiful in there. Not that I could see anything. But it was exactly my kind of thing - dark and damp and mysterious; I loved it down there underground. And it was such a mind-boggling concept; had lava really flown fast and free through these tunnels I was walking through that day? What also amazed me was how dark it was - and how this dark, desolate place never, never saw the light of day, and never would. It made me curious as to how dark it really was. So as soon as I got far enough ahead of our group so that I couldn't see the light from the other five people's flashlights, I sat down on a large fallen lava rock and turned off my lanter.
Complete, absolute darkness. Within seconds, it felt like, instead of being in a nearly two-mile long tunnel, I was trapped where I was on my rock. The darkness literally closed in around me, and I felt that I couldn't move, even if I tried - the darkness made a mental wall all around me I couldn't escape. And the silence! So quiet it was in that cave. The only noises were the drip, drip, drip of the water that seeped throught the earth and fell into the opening below. I sat for a few minutes, completelly mesmorized by the natural beauty of the cave.
And then I hard the laugh of my mom's boyfriend's six-year-old son and his flashlight shined in my eyes. I was back in reality. I stood up and kept walking down the tunnel to an end I couldn't see or imagine.
Finally we reached the end, where the tunnel narrowed down to the point where you had to crawl on your hands and knees to keep going. At first I told myself "no way" - I am a complete claustrophobe - but finally I told myself that I'd regret it if I didn't crawl just a little ways. I had a complete episode when I got to the end and it got really narrow and I had to army crawl - I kept yelling at my sister "Wait! Don't leave! Please, please wait for me! Don't leave me!!!" It was pathetic. But when I got back out, I was glad I had pushed myself and gone farther into the darkness.
Finally, after turning around and enduring another fourty-five mintues of hiking in the darkness, we emerged into the light of day. When the sudden sunlight made my head spin, I placed my hand on a rock to steady myself - and was shocked to feel cool, wet moss under my hands. No plantlife survived deep inside the cave, but here, in the mouth of such a dark, desolate place, there was life. It was beautiful.
Everything about the trip was beautiful, and, as corny as it sounds, really got me thinking about life and how small we are in the world - and how God loves us anyway.
All because of a cave.