Ever Farther Up

I have photos to show you of a recent hike, and then an incredible story to tell you about God's work.  By "incredible" I'm pretty sure I mean that some people would find it difficult to credit as being a true story.

But it is true, and I guess if you know me personally and you read my words, you might indeed have to find it credible.

The photos first. 

The superheroes headed to Catamount trail in Green Mountain Falls, just outside of town.  I read about this hike in the newspaper.  The hike was rated "2 Boots" out of 4.  We thought we were up for it.

We even brought along our GPS device to geocache along the trail, and we downloaded two points that were in the first mile of the hike, because the loop is 4 miles along and with two small kids and a puppy, how far were we going to get, really?

The first pic taken:  Bryan finally has to stop to mess with the GPS that keeps telling us we are 2000 miles from the target.  This was my fault--I had not made a careful search for a cache and I'll bet there is another "Catamount Trail" about 2000 miles from this one. We tucked the device away for another day.

Notice that we are on a dirt road.  Can you see the incline down the street that is half a mile behind us?  The kids kept asking, "Have we gone far enough yet?"

Ha!  The hike hasn't even started, people!  This is the hiking-in-to-the-hike stage.

But even the hiking in was pretty.  I took photos because I wasn't sure whether we'd ever reach the actual hike.

People live along this road, BTW.  There is a house behind me as I took this photo.  Nice.  But what do they do come winter?

At the trail head. Pretty magnificent, that wall right behind them. Why not climb part of it, right?

The bottom of the waterfall we hadn't realized we'd be hiking along.

At this point, I realized a few things: 1) I really like hiking with my dog and seeing him trot along off leash.  And 2) The trail right here became switchbacks through boulders, requiring a good deal of scramble.  So. . ."2 Boots" in the newspaper is kind of like Amy's version of, say, "4 Boots, wait until the kids are at least 12 years old."

Benziger will not go down our basement stairs.  They intimidate him.  When Bryan announced that we would sally forth up those switchbacks, I said, "O. . .K. . .  I'll just wait here with the dog, there's no way he'll go up."

Then the dog watched Bryan, Gemma and Joshua go up and starting whining and pacing.  His people!  His people! He must be with them!

But those little legs, Benzig. . .  I started up as well, and lifted him onto whichever boulder was too big for him to climb. 

What a delight to see my children and our puppy scramble, climb, scramble, up and up and up!  LOVED it!

Then it came time to cross the waterfall.  If I look very concerned about this crossing, and my children making it with wet shoes and a few logs holding the whole joint together, it's because, well, you get the point.

Does Gemma looked concerned, too?  But we followed on!

Here at a look-out.  The trail began an easy stretch here, and here is where we turned around.  On the way down, Bryan, Gemma and Benzig were far ahead of me and Josh.

Benzig made it across the waterfall, but then back-tracked to come back for us when he realized we were not right behind.  He was shaking with fear when he met us on that watery rock bridge, but was with us nonetheless.

This is what a good hike is, I think.  It's beautiful enough just to do the ordinary stroll on a dirt road.  

The climb up can seem intimidating before, even during the ascent. 

You never know quite what the pay-off is until you reach it. 

Even after you've reached it, you know there is still more to aspire to.

All of this relates to that incredible story I promised:

I went to a women's retreat this past weekend.  It was a Friday evening session, then going back to the church for a Saturday morning session.  To my surprise, it was really a prayer retreat:  the time was a simple matter of low-key worship alternating with private prayer.

A powerful time.  The Lord told me a lot about my own life and my children's.

During the last time of worship, I began to pray for my friend who was also at the retreat, whom I knew to be in a difficult circumstance regarding a person she loves. 

I prayed that God would tell me something that I could share to encourage her. 

Then I saw a mental image:  A huge vault with doors locked on top.  Giant, giant hands on strong arms pry apart the doors.  This person she loves is inside, alone in the vault.  God pours water in, drowning the person until he realizes he can swim.  He comes up from the water and releases a guttural scream, then shouts, "I had forgotten how awesome this is!"  He calls others to jump in and join him.

Image ends.

Worship was still on-going, but I had to share this.  I picked her out of the crowd and motioned to the back of the sanctuary.

She met me there.  I told her this image.  She wept and wept and wept and said that she has been seeing that vault--all locked up--in her prayers for years. 

I prayed with her right then, and said, "As Elisha called for the end of drought, Lord Jesus, we're asking You to open this vault now.  Rain down now

She cried all over again.  She had just been praying during worship, "God, the soil is prepared for his heart, please send rain now."

So.  We'll see what happens with that.

But worship was still on-going, and I was positively high from the experience of having heard from God so powerfully the whole weekend.

Another friend came to mind, whom I like a lot.  But I've never prayed with her and I didn't know much about anything that might be a concern for her now.  Even still, I saw another mental image, a very concrete one.  Somewhat peculiar.  Then worship ended.

I thought, "All right, in faith, I'll go share this with her."  I did.  She wept, then, to.  The image made no spiritual sense to me, but it was exactly something to the heart of something that did weigh on her.  I cannot share the details, because it's all pretty private stuff.

So this was all wonder-ful.  I mean that literally.  It was God's wonder-working power.  So meaningful.  The kind of thing that reminds me: I want to spend all my remaining days on Earth being part of God's plan in the lives of others, actively pursuing this hike He has designed for me. 

I'm going to die one day.  I really am.  And then my opportunity to live a life on Earth will be over.  There is no do-over.  Not for me.  Not for anyone. 

And, yes, I know I'm going to live in Heaven because I believe that I sin and that God's own just nature requires that a penalty is paid for that sin. This is what it means to "need a savior."  I need one, people. 

And I have one in Jesus Christ.  He paid the penalty for my sin by dying on the cross.  He defeated sin and death by resurrecting from the dead. That same Resurrection power was working during that worship service.

A retreat leader came up to me afterwards and concluded the story: 

"You know, Amy, I was looking out over the women during that last time of worship and my eyes were drawn to this one lady.  Next thing I know, you were motioning her to the back of the church to say something.  Then God turned my eyes to another woman there, for some reason, and I was praying and praying for her and then, next thing I know, right after worship, you went right up to her!  Pretty cool, huh?"

Uh, yeah.  Cool indeed. 

Where are you on your hike with God? 

I don't want to settle for a pretty enough picture along the dirt road.  I want more of God than that.

And I'm learning that the only way to get more of God is to let God have more of me.

One Time, I Could Have Died

We published a poem in our undergraduate literary magazine once that was titled, "One Time I Could Have Died."

That sounds like something an 18-year-old would write, but really, it was from a faculty member as he watched his 13 year old daughter stand on the edge of a cliff.  She was relishing in the ocean spray and the thrill of being on the wet rocks.  All he could see was all the danger that she could fall into.

Must have been a good poem if I remember it after 10+ years.

Anyway, the other day, I could have died:

They've been doing a lot of rock climbing at our gym lately, when Daddy takes them.  We should not be surprised that this has made climbers of them, and one day, they decided that the lowest tree branch was not too low after all.

It took them a good 2 hours to figure it out.  The first 30 minutes, they asked for my help again and again and I kept repeating the rule from Mrs. Queeney when we were attempting to climb her crab tree:  You have to get it on your own so that you know you can get down on your own.

I reconciled myself to the eventuality that we would go to the ER that day, or one day in the near future.  But I decided to choose the injury:  no head wounds from skulls crashing on bricks, and soon after this photo, I cut down those sucker branches on the ground so that no eyes would be poked out, either. 

I don't know.  They might not be that high up.  Higher than they've been before, though. 

Down River

I don't think I ever put up all the photos from the rafting trip. . .  Not on the blog, anyway.  And my mother's not on Facebook, so here's her chance to see them, too.

This was Joshua's 5 year old birthday celebration.  Betsy, Amy and TJ joined us, which was very handy.  Between the 2 strong guys in front and the raft guide in back, I didn't have to work very hard.

The kids loved it.

I loved that the kids loved it.

It was one of those days Bryan and I have often enough:  This is not vacation.  We actually live here.