Have you ever read the poem that begins with:

“Disappointment—His appointment,
change one letter and I see
that the thwarting of my purpose
is God’s better choice for me. . .“

After putting a lot of effort into planning—and then cancelling—our October EXPLORE Meetup at Jekyll Island, choosing a date in January had its risks. Average temperatures can be cold. Fog often blankets the coast, completely blocking sunrises and sunsets. There’s no special animal migrations. And of course, winter is when everyone is getting sick, increasing the likelihood of cancelations.

But it’s really the only weekend that could work. For some workshops, I can be choosy. But Meetups are low-dollar, more spontaneous events that happen when they fit in. So, I committed it to the Lord and booked my flights!

It’s one thing to say “Oh, God blessed our day”. It’s quite another to step back and count each specific, providential detail that happened in a day outside of my control, and say, “Wow, thank you Lord for blessing our day!”

And this was one of those situations. After living through the disappointment of October’s cancelation and then through God’s new “appointment” in January, I sat down with one of the students and wrote down all the oddly supernatural things that “just happened” that day. Here are the highlights from our list . . .

1. A truly noteworthy sunrise

I already talked about the many providential aspects of that morning’s sunrise in a previous blog post. For a workshop that’s scheduled month’s in advance, it’s like picking a sunrise out of a hat. You have no idea what it’s going to be like. Obviously, we do what we can, by actually being on-location even when the forecast says 100% fog . . . you have to put legs on your faith. But whether I’m there or not makes no difference in what the sunrise is like. And yet, God gave us color like I hadn’t photographed a long time.

And this was only the first of 9 things that were oddly providential that day. . . .

2. Two strong golden hours

I’ve been on enough outdoor photoshoots to know that golden hour is as fickle as color at sunrise or sunset. Especially when you’re shooting over the ocean for both morning and evening golden hours. A pretty sunrise is no guarantee of an amazing golden hour, and vise versa. It’s all a gamble. And for this particular day, we not only had one good golden hour in the morning, but two incredible, full-length golden hours! Practically all the way to the horizon both times. That’s the kind of thing I put on my “ideal day” list. And it was totally outside of my control too.

3. More than a bald eagle sighting

After morning golden hour, we hiked up the N Loop Trail to the big Clam Creek Fishing Pier. I’ve been on plenty of photo hikes where you don’t see much. But for this one, we couldn’t hardly go anywhere without stopping to photograph something! A red-wing blackbird, bluebirds, a snowy egret up-close, swallows, a kingfisher, goldfinches . . . to name the ones I remember.

We even saw a bald eagle fly by on the distant horizon. I remember jokingly commenting, “Hey, we should hang a dead fish on that tree over there so the eagle will come close enough for us to photograph it.” Well, would you know, near the end of the trail, here comes this bald eagle swooping in and landing in the top of a nearby tree. And I wasn’t hanging dead fish anywhere. It’s just what “happened”! And it stayed around so long, we photographed it to our hearts content and ended up actually walking away, leaving it sitting there because we had a deadline to meet. Nothing I did to make that happen!

And it’s kind of a picturesque perch too, isn’t it?!

4. A comfortable place to meet

Now this one you could debate on how “providential” it actually was. But for Meetups like this, I expect to be outside all day, For meal times, snack times, break times, picture-review times, picture-download times, etc. Whatever happens, we just use whatever’s around. Well, a few weeks before the event, Slade mentions in an email that he knew a pastor of a church on the island and could ask if we could use their fellowship hall for a break in the middle of the day if we’d like.

Of course I said yes, and as it turned out, it ended up being an important time for some of the students to charge up their camera batteries. Again, the amazingness of this aspect is debatable, but just saying, it’s one of those things that we really appreciated and weren’t expecting to have at all. I wasn’t trying to control the situation.

5. Ocean creatures up close

As we made our way to our sunset location, we hiked a few miles along the beach. And can you guess what decided to come along to play along the shore? Two dolphins! I can’t tell you how excited we all were! Half of us rushed to get on their telephoto lens before the encounter slipped away. The other half started running close and snapping pictures. And the, uh, other half stared in dumbfounded amazement.

It was a crazy experience. Only a few of us were ready enough to get good photos despite running down the beach to see if they would get close again. But it was one of those things that we looked back on as one of the most incredible parts of our day.

6. Visible stars

One of the things I wanted to do at this workshop was take pictures of the stars. What better opportunity for astrophotography than at an iconic location, looking out over the ocean?! You can only see the stars if there are no clouds, though. And guess what? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky all evening. I wonder Who was in control of that. Or, maybe we were just “lucky”? 🙂

7. A moonless sky

And not only were the stars visible, it “happened” that January 10 was very close to the new moon. I didn’t realize this until a week or so before the workshop. The moon didn’t rise till 1:15 the next morning. And we weren’t even planning to stay late. Sunset was so early, at 5:41pm, we didn’t have to stay out late and were packing up to leave before 9pm! You couldn’t ask for a better day for a workshop. And I totally had that all planned out . . . NOT!

8. I could talk!

Seasonal germs may not go around the block as quickly in south Georgia as they do in more northern climates, but I had just come down from Connecticut. Every day was a guess as to what my voice would be like. And this weird jaw thing . . . for several days before the workshop, it was hurting so bad that I could hardly chew a peanut. Let alone bite into a sandwich! But the day before the workshop . . . it providentially decided to go away.

And I had no problem with congestion or my voice going out throughout the whole day too. In fact, I didn’t even have a headache after a full day of activity in the sun! Maybe it was coincidence. But, I don’t think so. Just sayin’.

9. Summer weather

On my website, the workshop details stated: “Expect it to be very cool for south Georgia, low of 40F, high of 60F. Bring extra layers. . . .” Flying in from Connecticut, that felt like spring. But when I arrived, it was summer! It was in the 60s early in the morning as we photographed the incredible sunrise on Driftwood Beach. And we left all our extra layers in the car as we hiked the beaches in 80 something degrees that afternoon. It was a surreal and incredible experience. Literally. And, like everything else, it was quite providential.

So, I guess we’ll never know how “supernatural” this string of “coincidences” actually was that day. Just because things go the way we want them to, doesn’t make them “good” necessarily. And I’m not saying because we prayed and hoped for good things that that’s why God decided to give us what He did. But it is true that “Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways (Psalm 128:1).” And we were walking in His ways that day. We had our original way, but God redirected us with His providential way. And whatever happened that day in January would be what was “good” for us.

And for that we want to thank Him! We will use it as an opportunity to praise the Lord for giving us something that we can look back on with delight and praise to the Creator. We made ourselves students in the classroom of God’s creation, and He orchestrated the weather and circumstances as He pleased. So wow, thank you Lord for blessing our day!