The Glass Window

When I woke up that morning, I felt the Lord calling me to spend some time with Him. But I told Him, “Well, Lord, I’ve got this really great book on parasites, and I’d really rather read that right now.”

This was our second morning after arriving on Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas, for a much-anticipated family vacation. My reticence to respond to God’s nudging was another way of saying, “Lord, I’m on holidays. I just feel like doing what I want right now.” It would have been good if I’d reminded myself of how Oswald Chambers said, “You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating” (My Utmost for His Highest, April 15).

Greg has had a saying lately: “Set your feet a little wider.” The “amplified” version, which comes out as you talk more to him about it, is this: Strengthen your stance. You don’t know what’s coming, and you need to be braced against something unexpected that may otherwise knock you off your feet. You may also be called upon to steady someone next to you who failed to get his feet planted firmly enough under him. (He adds that it’s also easier to dance when the opportunity presents itself.)

I see now that this is what we are doing in the Spirit when we spend time with God: We are setting our feet a little wider, strengthening our stance. And I chose not to do it that morning. It just didn't seem like a big deal.

When I came down to the main house to join the rest of the party for breakfast, I found that the plan shaping up for the day was to drive up to see the Glass Window. We had heard that this was a must-see on the island. In due course, our party of eight piled into the two little rental cars and headed north.

Internet Photo

The island of Eleuthera is long and narrow, 110 miles long and an average of 1 mile wide. The Glass Window is where the island narrows to almost nothing and the deep blue Atlantic sends its mighty waves crashing through an opening into the placid, aqua Caribbean. There used to be a natural rock bridge over the opening, as depicted by artist Winslow Homer in 1895.

Internet Picture: The Glass Window, Winslow Homer, 1895.

But that arch was destroyed by several hurricanes in the 1940s. A concrete bridge was built in its place—and has had to be replaced a number of times since.

When we arrived at the site, we drove across the bridge and pulled off and parked on the side of the narrow pavement. Everyone piled out and headed across the bridge. I was bringing up the rear. Lindsay immediately jumped up on the concrete rail and proceeded to walk across on it, long arms extended for balance. Anxiety took an easy foothold in me.

Internet: Although the concrete rail is under repairs here, it shows where Lindsay did his balancing act.

Halfway across, he appeared to lose his equilibrium, arms waving wildly, torso going first one way and then the other, about 80 feet above the treacherous lava rock. Scott (Rachel’s boyfriend), walking beside him on the bridge proper, made several wild grabs for an arm but could not seem to connect. I had to face the other way and just hope for the best. I was already wishing that I’d spent that time with God. I was overtaken by fear now and could not get a grip on it, any more that Scott could get a grip on Lindsay.

It turned out, as Lindsay told us later, he was “just fooling around.” And then I realized that he had intentionally evaded Scott’s helping hand.

Across the bridge, the kids headed away from the road, off across the jagged rocks toward the cliffs. Lindsay plunked himself down high above the water, right on the edge.

Lindsay "living on the edge"; Scott & Rachel nearby.

I was following them, but suddenly could not walk. I sat down for a few minutes. I was nauseated and dizzy, fearful of Lindsay’s seeming carelessness. More than that, there was an awful sense of foreboding that was so thick over me, I could have cut it with a knife. I needed God’s help so badly, and I began to pray in the Spirit. I caught up with Rachel and asked if she felt strange.

“I’m just really angry at Lindsay for pushing the limits,” she said.

I wanted to scream at him, to make him hear above the roar of the incessant wind, wanted to tell him to get away from the edge. But nobody likes a screaming mother. “I can hardly stand up,” I said to Rachel, and I bent double at the waist to try to clear my head, still praying under my breath.

Now I saw that my dear husband Greg was climbing down under the bridge, and now I wanted to scream at him. You don’t know this place; you don’t know what’s safe and what’s not. But nobody likes a screaming wife. I kept my mouth shut except for the movement of my lips as I prayed continuously in the Spirit. When you know not how to pray as you ought, the Spirit intercedes for you with groanings that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).

Lindsay & Christina. Greg is just out of sight at the left of the photo, 
seated at the base of the concrete bridge support.

Between waves, Greg made his way across to the other side of the rocky pass and settled himself at the base of the bridge support. The kids were all watching him, and they laughed when a slightly larger wave came through and soaked him with spray. I was not amused.

I wish now that I’d known then what I know now about the Glass Window, having read, after the fact, various things online, like the following:

“One should take great care when visiting the Glass Window Bridge and the surrounding cliff areas. Rogue waves have been known to arrive unexpectedly and wash over the bridge and nearby cliffs. Since there are no immediate reefs along the ocean side to break up these rogue waves as they arrive, the waves can hit with great force and have been known to not only wash people out into the ocean, but vehicles as well.”

And this is referring to the risk of hanging around on the bridge, not under the bridge. And this is not necessarily in rough weather. These rogue waves can happen literally out of the clear blue.

Now some of the kids—first Melissa, then Ben, then Scott and Rachel, emboldened by Greg’s foray, made their way down. Lindsay and his girlfriend, Christina, climbed down too, but fortunately, as I found out later, they didn't stay long.

Kids coming and going. This shows the rugged rocky channel between waves.

I was very uneasy with the whole rest of the family being in what seemed such a vulnerable place. I couldn't watch anymore. I climbed back to the road and walked along it, over the bridge and away from it with my back to the whole scene, thinking over and over, I’ll just hope for the best. I’ll just hope for the best. And all the while, I prayed “without ceasing.” And I kept thinking, I just can’t wait until we’re finally driving away from this place.

Panoramic shot by Ben. Greg right at the edge of the 12 or 15 ft. cliff into the Caribbean.

At length I walked back to the centre of the bridge and looked down. Greg had moved back to the opposite side from where he’d been sitting, and the other four were standing pretty much right smack in the middle of that channel of rock. I was there just in time to see it all unfold, and I watched silently with a strange detachment.

I heard Greg shout, “Get back!” as a large wave came through. It hit immediately and threw all four of them off balance. Rachel was hit hardest; the wave took her right over backward and she tumbled in the vicious rocky froth about twenty feet and just over the edge of the 12- or 15-foot drop that plunges down into the Caribbean. As she went over, in all that water she managed to quickly flip to her front and grab the rough rock in front of her with both hands, also jamming her bare feet into crevices, her pretty flip-flops now irretrievably lost. There she was able to hold fast until the water subsided and then to brace herself as another large wave loomed.

In the interim the other three had scrambled across the rough wet terrain to get to her, and Ben and Melissa, getting there first, reached over the edge and did their best to get a good grip on her. Scott was just behind them, and as the next wave hit, he braced himself and leaned down hard on Ben’s and Melissa’s shoulders as their feet went out from under them again.

Internet Photo, from the Caribbean side, shows a 100-ft. wave coming through.
This explains why seaweed sometimes drapes the power lines above the bridge.

When I think now of the role Scott played there, I think again of Greg’s saying: “Set your feet a little wider. Strengthen your stance. You don’t know what’s coming, and you need to be braced against the unexpected, which may otherwise knock you off your feet. You may also be called upon to steady someone next to you who failed to get his feet planted firmly enough under him.” I also now picture a couple of angels, standing on either side of Scott, planting their own feet a little wider too, hands on his shoulders, and leaning down hard on him as he was leaning down on Rachel’s brother and sister.

Things were a blur then as the others helped Rachel up and quickly got her and themselves out of harm’s way. Then Rachel became hysterical. She was bleeding profusely. The rough lava rock had shredded the bottoms of her feet as well as her shins and knees and wrists. The pools of water that were left behind, waiting for the next wave, were red with her blood. She wouldn't let anybody touch her. “Just pray for me!” she cried.

It was a slow and painful climb back up to the vehicles. Ben and Melissa, too, had scraped their feet and were bleeding.

Our two vehicles took a hasty trip looking for a medi-centre. A doctor treated Rachel’s wounds and gave her a tetanus shot. When she heard where we’d been, she looked at us with first shock and then sternness. “The locals don’t even go down there,” she said. “We know better. The last few times we've been called for an accident up there, they haven't even found the bodies.”

Rachel’s legs, glamorously waxed and tanned in anticipation of our trip, were now half-covered with bandages. Her feet and wrists were likewise swathed. (Remarkably though, not a single one of her lovely gel nails was even chipped!) Ben’s and Melissa’s cameras, both expensive, were both destroyed by the sea water, as were several cell phones. But we all felt we’d got off very cheaply.

(Some weeks later, as I shared this story with my friend Chris and told her how badly Rachel had got cut up, she said, “Yes, but the rock saved her life.” Then after a pause she added, “Sometimes when we cling to the Rock, our flesh gets shredded.” She, of course, was speaking now in a metaphor, because Christ is referred to—and referred to Himself—as the Rock. And the second half of my friend’s metaphor speaks of our “old nature,” or as the Bible calls it, the flesh, which God is slowly stripping out of us. I picked up on her theme and quoted something Jesus said—and He, too, was using here the same metaphor: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces” (Luke 20:18). Yet at the same time, He saves our lives.)

That evening as the family cozied up around a movie, I texted my friend Debbie, because I needed someone to share the weight of both the fear and the gratitude. I kept thanking God over and over, but it seemed so paltry. So I texted Deb the briefest of details, swore her to secrecy (because the experience was just too awful to be spoken of lightly), and asked her to please thank God with me. That helped.

The next morning, as Greg and I lay there and talked, he said he felt even more shaken up now than the day before. We prayed and brought God into the middle of our fear and relief and gratitude. We touched base with Him the way I wished I’d done the day before. The fear was only then finally put in its place, and faith rose up. I quoted God’s word back to Him, reminding Him that He promises that He is working everything together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purposes.

On the basis of that scripture, I then declared aloud, “I command now that these circumstances yield forth glory to God and blessing to His people.” Within the hour we were seeing the manifestations of that prayer. But that’s another story altogether.

At one of our meals later that day, I shared about how God told Job that it was He who had set the doors and bars of the sea in place; that it was He who said to the ocean, “This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.” I told the whole family that I believed that God had spoken that command to the waves the day before: “This far you may come and no farther.” And I read aloud a psalm that had been on my mind. There are a couple of verses in it about the ocean, and even their structure has a rhythm and repetition that reminds me of breakers on the shore.

The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity.

The seas have lifted up, Lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the Lord on high is mighty.
                                                                 Psalm 93:1-4, NIV

There is a worship song that says, “The waves and wind still know His Name.” This speaks back to when Jesus walked the earth, the night He calmed the storm on the lake with just a simple command. In His Name is all power and authority in heaven and on earth. The fearsome power of nature still recognizes that higher authority and bends its knee in submission when He says, “This far and no farther.”

I finally shared this story publicly, six weeks later, in our Saturday evening church service. When I was done, Ben and his worship team led us in the powerful and oh so fitting song “Oceans,” by Hillsong.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and you won't start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine