It came quickly, crashing over me with a force that knocked me nearly onto my back in the raft. My feet were dug in under the seat in front of me. I had a death grip on the paddle in my hands, and with all the strength I could muster, I held on, fought gravity, and yanked myself back to an upright position.
For a split second, I felt relief and exhaled. I had made it through the worst of the current rapid and was still in the boat. It was short-lived as an instant later the opposite side of the raft went air borne and another wave crashed over us. This one took me – flipping my feet over my shoulders and somersaulting me out of the safety of the raft – before I even had a chance to hang on or attempt to help paddle out.
Splash. Suddenly it was dark, and the sound of voices was muffled in the distance beyond the torrent of raging water. Disoriented from my unceremonious exit from the raft and from being in the middle of fast-moving rapids, I tried to remember. Keep my feet clear of the rocks and get to the surface. Bump. I came up under the raft and hit my head on it. Everything is swirling and racing. What did the guide say to do if that happened? Put my hands on the bottom of the raft and “walk” my out.
I came up a few seconds later the other side of the raft with my husband, friends, and guide looking all over to see where I would surface. I threw one arm up and barely over the edge of the raft and held on. A friend tried to reach over and pull me up and back into the raft, but he was unsuccessful. We were still trying to get out of the rapids. I’m barely hanging on because I can’t reach, and it’s wet.
This was the moment I was considering panicking. Pretty sure my husband, who was on the other side of the raft right in front of my seat, was considering the same thing. But just then our guide was able to maneuver us out of the rapids and into calmer water. She, who was both smaller and older than the male friend who attempted to fish me out minutes earlier, made her way up to where I was, reached over the edge, grabbed the shoulders of my life jacket, and heaved me up and back into the raft in one fell swoop.
She complimented me on doing all the right things to stay safe in the water – not panicking and following her instructions. Then we asked her how she was able to pull me in when the guy couldn’t. She informed us that the life jackets begin to loosen as they’ve been worn and get wet. He was unsteady and was being too gentle, so the life jacket just pulled up, and I didn’t go with it. The guide, on the other hand, was expecting the looser life jacket and pulled with authority immediately.
That’s been 21 years ago now. It’s not an experience I think of often. When I do, I have fond memories of it, but once was enough. I prefer a kayak down a calm river. Something triggered a rare memory of it this week. I was struck by some parallels that I hadn’t thought about before.
The wise move is always to trust the Lord. He’s the guide. It’s as simple and difficult as that. When we practice this routinely with smaller details, then it becomes more of a reflex when we hit life’s real rapids. One of the key reasons that I was safe and unharmed was because I followed the instructions and trusted my guide.
Psalm 37:5 (NKJV) says “Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.”
I’ve been through some of life’s rapids – times when life knocked me around, and I had no control. There have been times when I’ve been hurt, times when I felt lost, times when I didn’t know how I would get back in the boat. The one constant for me has always been my guide. God has rescued me over and over again no matter the severity of the rapid or how many times I got knocked out of the boat.
We will all hit patches of rapids eventually. If you’ve committed to trust the Lord and follow His instructions, then you can be assured that He will take care of you. Friends, that doesn’t mean that you won’t get flipped out of the boat occasionally. It might get scary. It might disorient you. It might take your breath or even injure you. But you don’t need to panic. Your guide can be trusted to get you safely home. Do you trust Him?
