Puffins – Summer Setting

One of my prayer partners, Cindi Fouch, shared these pictures with me after visiting Scotland.

I loved her reflections so much that I asked if I could share them with you for Father’s Day:

“To answer your questions: I took these photos during a boat tour out to Staffa Island, off the coast of the Scottish Isle of Mull.

The biggest highlights of Staffa Island are puffins and Fingal’s Cave.

This is Fingal’s Cave. (Mendelssohn wrote a piece by that title after being impressed with the sound of the waves in the cave!)

It is, indeed, the same formation that runs from the Giant’s Causeway all the way up to these Scottish Islands. (This is a photo of Alan and me at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland; I asked Cindi if they were contiguous.)

So beautiful and surprising, those basalt columns!

On the boat trip out to Staffa Island I noticed a man who was extremely attentive to (I think) his son, a young man with a serious leg injury.

After disembarking and climbing a lot of steps up a steep slope we made our way up the path to where the puffins nest.

This man led his son that entire way!

I thought, “Surely he won’t be able to do this and go to Fingal’s Cave also, since they’ve only given us one hour to explore the island.” But, they did!

The father led his son up slopes and along the rocky cave shoreline to see everything— the puffins and the basalt columns—enabling him to go places and see things he never could have without his father’s constant presence!

The walk was obviously hard for the son, but the father always took on the greater risk, putting himself on the cliff side, standing between every danger and his son.

I love the way that father did not hesitate letting, and helping, his son do something really hard but so rewarding, and it gives me appreciation for my relationship with our great Father, Who also does this for us! Because of our heavenly Father’s constant presence— leading, protecting, helping—we are able to go places we could never go alone . . . to do and see things that would otherwise be impossible! It was a precious reminder of our patient, encouraging Father God.