We recently went on a vacation to Santa Fe, New Mexico and on the way home detoured a little to visit Carlsbad Caverns. If you haven’t been there, put it on your bucket list, it is one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen.
Let me paint the scene for you: after being on the interstate for 4 hours we pull off into this podunk little nothing town…small town America literally, nothing really there, just simple living. Driving through until we find ourselves on the outskirts of the town, thinking maybe we missed a turn or something when we come to a sign announcing Carlsbad State Park.
And wow, just wow!
43,000 acres of the most beautiful landscape; mountains, cactus and bendy roads as far as the eye can see. Really breathtaking scenery as you wind your way through the park and up the mountain to arrive at the opening of the cavern.
The park’s most famous cave, Carlsbad Cavern, is over 1,000 feet deep and currently contains 30 miles of mapped passages. The Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern is the largest underground chamber in the United States.
We walked 750 feet down a winding path into the opening of this monster cave. This was my second trip to the caverns, I don’t remember my first time here, I was 3 years old but from the pictures I have seen, I had a really good time. Walking and earning many a piggy back rides with my parents who were still happily married back then. It’s a sweet memory so being here again felt nostalgic on some level.
So many beautiful things to see; stalagmite princess castles, stalactite chandeliers, things that look like popcorn and lily pads, mountains of droopy, melting icing and massive draperies that hang magnificently clinging to the side of rock. Truly amazing all the shapes these mineral formations take. I imagine God, up in heaven, having a ball as He creates each one knowing how much it will delight His kids that would one day stumble upon the opening, discovering this hidden cave with all its treasures!
The path in the cavern leads you to a space known as the Big Room which is 14 football fields in size. An enormous cavern filled with all sorts of sights. Imagining, like one does when cloud watching, all the fun shapes and images that present themselves as you walk: Rapunzel’s castle, a whale’s mouth, a buttocks, and funny faces of men with large noses. It’s the imagination’s playground for sure!
I loved it all, it was so worth the detour and the time! My most favorite thing of all was this particular fact: the Big Room from an ariel view has the shape of a cross and they call it that: a cross! Not a “T” but a cross.
I just love this! Can’t you just see Him up there creating all the amazing things He covered the earth with; flowering trees, butterflies, florescent fish in the deep, glowing stars millions of miles away for us to look up into the black velvet sky to see, cucumbers on the vine, I could go on and on, but here, deep in the earth, hidden from plain sight for many, many years, God placed secret evidence of Himself, His Son, His love for us — a cross! His imprint on the earth to remind us that He created all things and we can find Him in all things. I bet He was like a little child, giddy with excitement, opening a new toy on Christmas morning. Imagine the scene, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, waiting and watching, nudging one another as their kids happened upon the mouth of the cave…”Oh my God (wink wink, think they call each other that? Probably not..anywho back to my fun imaginative story) I cannot wait for them to find it, to see the cross We hid in there for them!”
Can’t you just feel His delight for us in this exploration?!
What a fun God He is, treasure hunts on a heavenly scale!
I love that He hid a cross in Carlsbad Caverns – coolest thing ever! He never tires of
delighting us,
surprising us,
engaging us,
inviting us.
He is the God of MORE and there is always MORE with our lavish, never in short supply, God who invites and invites and invites us to see Him!
Heart shaped lakes,
catfish backbones in the shape of a crucifix,
stars that literally sing in the heavens,
cross-shaped laminin found in our cells that holds the human body together,
and a hidden cross concealed 1000 feet below in a secret cavern.
