A little lesson from the journey <3
Hey and happy Friday!
In case you missed it, Russ and I took a little vacation this past week to Estes Park, Colorado.
We enjoyed the beauty of the area and signed up to go white water rafting.
It was all fun and games until the manager of that day’s excursion gathered us around for his safety talk.
He went through a variety of scenarios that included falling out of the boat, pulling in someone who has fallen out of the boat, getting your foot caught in a rock or fallen tree and thus drowning, and wrapping the raft like a taco around the supports of one of the three bridges we would be traveling under.
That and the giant sign warning us of snakes lurking hither and yon and I was ready to climb back into the school bus and wait for the group at the far end of the death river experience.
But I put my big girl life garment on, which apparently has not been cleaned since far before Covid reared its ugly head, and my groovy helmet that may or may not have reminded me of pictures of helmets I have seen in WW 1 movies…and I got in the boat.
As we were practicing following commands from our guide in the eddy where we launched out, I asked him if he could give me a rough percentage of how many people he has actually lost out of his raft over his career.
He kindly replied that he does about 150 trips a season and he tries to keep it below 10. He shared he had already lost two but they fell out in the calmest of waters basically because they wanted to.
We asked him how long he had been doing this on the river were are on, and he said this was his fourth year.
As the trip progressed, he proved his worth as he knew every little and big rock formation, exactly where to hit the rushing waters and even decided we were handling our instructions well enough that he could get us to spin through the last two rapids.
He called us “Team” the entire time.
And we felt like a team.
And I guess I would say that as we rafted down this beautiful stretch of scenery with freezing cold water sloshing over us from time to time, I felt safe because the guide had studied and put study into practice over and over and over and now we were reaping the benefits of his wisdom.
So of course, you know I thought of Jesus.
Because if you belong to Him, He is in your boat; whether you realize it or not.
He is doing the heavy work and the steering; whether you sense it or not.
He knows the path you and I are taking each day and while we must do our part and paddle forward once, or twice…or backward two … or Left side, paddle forward and Right side, paddle back…He’s making sure we don’t capsize.
So wherever the river takes you today, I pray you know Him.
I pray you to have the strength and discernment to do what only you can do, and I pray you have the faith and the trust to let Him do what only He can do.
Blessings and happy Fourth!