it matters where the anchor is dropped

Driving on a country road in Makawao, Maui, I noticed that an old building that had long stirred me each time I past it - it was rich with ancient Hawaiian history - was gone.

It was not a particularly beautiful building, but rather plain, tiny green shackleboard house with ordinary white paned windows and a small, leaning front porch. I loved it. This house happily represented, for me, the essence of traditional Hawaiian upcountry plantation living. I always looked for it behind the rows of bamboo when rounding the corner that leads down towards Haiku. But now it is gone. I miss it, and my heart aches for the loss, small as it is in the grander scheme of the wide, wide world.

Reflecting on the expiration of this sweet Hawaiian country home illustrates for me just how transitory life is. Just how disposable the trappings of the world can be. Nothing can be taken for granted. Nothing is permanent. Nothing that is today, is guaranteed to be tomorrow.

Except the Lord.

I am met tonight with a renewed sense of gratitude that my anchor is moored in the truth that will never disappear, be altered, change, or leave me. Praise God that His Hawaiian country cottage in my soul is rooted in the fertile soil of the spirit, not the lush slopes of Mount Haleakala, and that it will never fade away as this earth ebbs and flows. The truth of the Lord stands forever.