Shadow of the covenant

We woke up on Wednesday, disappointingly, to more rain.

We did see a lot of rainbows while we were there.

The weather was very finicky. I got the impression that St. Lucians don’t pay much attention to weather forecasts; as one of our shuttle drivers told us, in St. Lucia, you just get wet; in America you can actually freeze to death.

The view from breakfast at Armando’s

As seems typical, each rain shower was quickly over. The problem was, there kept being another and another rain shower after it. The sun would blaze, then it would cloud over; it would rain, it would stop; and the clouds and rain didn’t necessarily appear together. It was all a mixed-up atmospheric mess.

Rainbows: the prettiest sign of God’s covenant with man.

Christ the true and better Adam…

Dying, He reversed the curse; then

Rising, crushed the serpent’s head.

Since without the blazing sunshine, the pool was uncomfortably chilly for me, Jason went back to our room and retrieved the floatie raft that came with our plunge pool. Then I could veeeeerrrry carefully edge myself onto the raft and Jason could push me around the pool while I kept a minimum of skin touching the water—and when the rain came, he could quickly push me under the restaurant overhang to park for a while. 

He said it was like having a toy boat to play with.

I said it was reason I married him.

Not for nothing do we celebrate two decades of marriage—that blessed institution designed to shadow the love of Jesus for His bride.

Christ the true and better Isaac;

Humble Son of sacrifice,

Who would climb the fearful mountain,

There to offer up His life.

Laid with faith upon the altar,

Father’s joy and only Son;

There salvation was provided,

Oh what full and boundless love.

Being already Wednesday, we wanted a chance to try out snorkeling at the resort’s beach, which we did lots of at the Sandals Grande five years ago. The only reason I didn’t do more of it before was because I got too cold after half an hour, which is the prime reason I brought a wetsuit this time.

So we returned to the room to get our snorkel stuff before heading to the beach at the main resort, and found that our butlers had not forgotten that it was our anniversary.

We had already discovered on our earlier, brief visit to the beach that the water was not only surprisingly very warm, but the waves were as big as I’ve seen in person anywhere, so we had our doubts about whether snorkeling would work. I decided to wait and let Jason report back after he tried it.

The building among the trees is Kimonos, the Japanese steakhouse with a view over the water.

Christ the true and better Moses…

With His arms stretched wide to heaven,

See the waters part in two;

See the veil is torn forever,

Cleansed with blood we pass now through. 

Despite valiant efforts, Jason determined that the water was too turbid to see anything, even if you could manage to avoid getting knocked into a rock.

Our room is in the third house from the end.

We celebrated our anniversary that night with dinner at the French restaurant onsite, although sadly my stomach was protesting all the rich food and juice-based cocktails, so I could barely touch my dinner and champagne.

On the plus side, we discovered another use for our butler was to fetch us Pepto Bismol. Because nothing says lifelong romance like rose petals and diarrhea.

Amen, amen, from beginning to the end.

Christ the story, His the glory;

Alleluia, amen!

Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa; “Christ the True and Better”

St. Lucia Tuesday

Hard to complain about rain when you wake up the next morning to this:

And breakfast looks like this:

We texted our kids good morning:

And they texted back this:

What is our hope in life and death?

Christ alone, Christ alone.

Tuesday was the day Jason had booked our sunset cruise excursion—the same adventure we did last time we were in St. Lucia. We still had the morning to lounge around and wine and dine before the shuttle picked us up after lunch.

This picture pretty much sums up why Jason chose this resort.

I had just gotten the drink on the left when Abra showed up bearing two of the red white and blue drinks on the right. I don’t know what it was, but it was delicious.

As before, we shuttled to Castries (just north of our resort this time), where we boarded a catamaran to take us most of the way down the west coast of St. Lucia to the Pitons.

We passed La Toc along the way—we stayed in the middle of the five blue houses on this peninsula:

The red roof below is Armando’s, where we could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and the white fence just in front of it surrounds the pool.

Imagine what it’s like to live in this house?

Or this one?

Marigot Bay

Pitons coming into view

St. Lucia is just gorgeous—a jewel in the Caribbean. Having now been there twice to celebrate a God-given marriage with my beloved, it has an even more special place in my heart. It’s a difficult place to leave. Some regular people live there, and presumably a fair number of super rich people have houses or yachts there. But maximizing time in such an earthly paradise is not our hope, in life or in death.

And what reward will heaven bring?

Everlasting life with Him.

Getting ready to snorkel

Jason bought a last-minute second GoPro before we left home so we had double the underwater images!

The sunset part of the cruise was on the way back.

Jade Resort, which the tour guides love to point out is the most expensive resort in St. Lucia.

We came home after a beautiful full day to a lovely towel bunny and good night message painstakingly formed out of leaves.

There we will rise to meet the Lord,

Then sin and death will be destroyed,

And we will feast in endless joy,

When Christ is ours forevermore.

~Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Matt Papa; “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”