This is where we had to bail out..we had already come through the worst part.
With the torrential rains we’ve been having, the Buffalo River has been up and moving for a while. That being said, on Friday, Sara and I decided to conquer the river. The level was a couple of inches below flood stage and we had no idea what we were in for.
Just about every rapid on the Buffalo was about a class higher than usual. We were tossed to and fro with the numerous whitewater rapids and hairpin turns, but we managed through it all. That is until…
Gray Rock Rapids, or Hell’s Half Acre, or the Haystacks…whatever you wanna call it. This is normally a solid class II, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t a class III on this particular day. We could hear the raging whitewater long before we saw it. When we rounded the riverbend we came face to face with the monster. “Sara, you might want to get low in the canoe, cuz this one’s gonna be rough,” I said calmly. Then, we entered the rapids. I got to my knees immediately and started paddling for our lives. The standing waves were easily 3 to 4 feet and were coming from every direction. I thought it would never come to an end as I paddled furiously to correct the course of the canoe that was being flung in every direction.
We would go over one wave, and another would be waiting. As we dropped over them…water would pour into the boat. Then, a wave would come in from the side and pour more water into the boat. This was an open canoe in a mess of waves. That spells trouble. The water we took in made the canoe especially tipsy, but we perservered and made it almost all of the way through…but then I realized I was all wet. No, I didn’t wet my pants…this water was cold and the canoe was floating below the surface of the water because it had taken in all of the water it could hold.
We bailed! My wife assumed the whitewater safety position floating on her back through the rapids. I, on the other hand, did not want to lose my canoe so I grabbed on for dear life and tried as best I could to fight the deep water, standing waves, and rapids to get to shore. Then, it hit me…the shock of the ice cold water. I couldn’t breathe! My lungs wouldn’t expand all of the way. “Sara, don’t forget to breathe!,” I yelled. She turned around and I saw the shock of the cold water hit her, too. She was forcing herself to breathe and had cut her ankle on a rock turning around to see if I was alright.
I finally got control of my breath. “Swim for the shore on the left!” I grabbed the canoe and swam furiously to the shore…grabbing Sara as I went by. We made it to shore, but our paddles were gone. Luckily… the paddles rested in an eddy about 1/2 a mile downstream and some kayakers grabbed them for me. We dumped the canoe and finished out our trip just fine. Thanking God the entire way that we had worn our lifejackets (something we don’t normally do on the relatively easy Buffalo river).
“So, what’s the Easter message?,” you ask. It hit me later that my life is a lot like this canoe trip at times. I try everything in my power to keep myself afloat and not tip the boat. Yet my strength and paddling abilities are no match for a raging river. I can try everything…but if the waves are higher than my canoe…it’s gonna go under.
I try to live life in my own power and yet I fail miserably. I try to do things my own way, to keep myself afloat…and I always make the wrong decisions. This world is more powerful than me and I am at it’s mercy when I choose my own way. Left to myself, I’d disappoint my family, my friends, my church…you name it. Yet there is something more powerful than the world. More powerful than my inability to do the right thing. That’s the power of God. The power of Easter, the power of the resurrection.
The Bible says that the same power that raised Christ from the dead, is the same power that helps me get through the day. You ask me if I could still be a Christian if the Resurrection, if Easter was a story, a myth? No way. But the Easter story is true…it’s not a fairy tale and if I’d just open my mind to the truth I’d realize it takes more faith to believe it’s all a lie than it does to believe that the Bible tells the truth.
It’s because of the resurrection that I can get through my days. That I can make the right decisions. That I can have power for daily living.
And you can have that power, too. Ask me how.
