(not an actual picture of us rafting... hopefully that will come at a later date.)This weekend I got an opportunity to go to Jackson, WY to go white water rafting down the Snake River with my family. We had an incredible experience, and learned a great deal from the lessons that the water can teach us all. With this years experience of rafting came a scare that we all where grateful to be on dry ground once again with little lost. Five adults off the boat in one wave leaving three adults and two kids under the age of eight. Near the end of the ordeal as I watched mom and dad floating through the rapids on their own the fear I was already feeling began to consume me as the memories arose of my own experience years ago.
As I have since been thinking about this recent experience and the experience of my own. I began to realize the Lord's hand in taking care of me so many years ago. As I spoke with my mother of her experience with dad and the advice that he gave her to keep her safe from rocks and other dangers that the dark waters of the river hide I realized that some how even though in my experience I was riding the river alone I knew to do those very things. My mind was cleared enough that I knew to keep my head back and my feet up. In the end everyone was amazed that I had held onto my paddle through it all. What really was amazing was how protected I had been even though there was no one there to physically tell me what to do or to hold my hand. I don't remember if I had been told before hand to keep my feet up by dad or possibly Benny, but the Lord knew what I needed to do to survive. In the past I have looked at this situation with terror trying to forget the fear that I felt. Now I look to that experience with added gratitude for my Father in Heaven. It is another experience that I can add to my life where I know that the Lord knows me and only He can comfort me. Thank you Heavenly Father for sustaining me and helping my eyes to open to the impact that Thou had in my life that day on the river.
I found this quote while reading off of lds.org today. It seemed to fit what I have been feeling since this experience on the river happened only a couple of days ago.
“It is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm,” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles declares. “They sustain us in our hour of need—and always will, even if we cannot recognize that intervention. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”
