Adventure

“You owe us big time!”  I heard it from the lips of my children and I read it in their glares.  They were donning raingear with sleeves much longer than their arms and necklines so big they allowed falling raindrops to splatter onto their t-shirts.  Footwear wasn’t needed, because getting into the rafts would soak their feet anyway.  We were standing alongside a river that all the tourist brochures promised would give us an unforgettable adventure.  “Your raft guide will give you instruction as you navigate the perilous white waters.  His expertise will get you through the treacherous whirlpools that could suck you and your raft into the dark depths.”

At this point the three kids and my husband were ready to abandon the adventure, but we’d already paid, so that put my husband on my side.  Actually, I had looked hard for a white water adventure that accommodated a seven-year-old, the age of our youngest.  This one did, so I figured it couldn’t be all that dangerous and that much of the rhetoric was merely hype.  Of course by the time a person signs all the release papers, they begin to wonder if the arthritis in their big toe is reason enough to back out.

A friend of mine called the “Discover the Grand Canyon Adventure” group four times looking for an excuse to back out of the vacation trip her husband planned for them. When the proprietors assured her on all counts-- out-of-shape, overweight, even over sixty-five (though she was in her forties) -- that she could certainly make the trip, she finally capitulated. 

When I planned this white water excursion for my family I was confident they would love it. But before we boarded our rafts, the family gave me serious doubts. 

We did maneuver the hazardous whirlpool and like all good tourist-oriented attractions there was a photographer there to snap a shot of our moment of greatest fright and intensity.  We made the picture into our Christmas card that year.  Friends of mine said, “Cindy, we saw the look on your face.  You looked scared to death!  You must have been wondering what your kids dragged you into.”

“What!?  Are you kidding!?  I was the adventurous one.  They were a bunch of wimps.”  But no woman says that about her children or her husband, even if its true.  I loved that rafting adventure and by the end of the trip, my family did, too. They chattered enthusiastically and boastfully as we worked to dry our drenched bodies and clothes.  So much for the raingear.

I consider my life to have been adventurous.  I’ve had some unusual experiences with varying levels of excitement.  I remember my churning stomach as I left my hotel room in Tehran, Iran and hailed a cab to go to work in a city I didn’t know and surrounded by a language I couldn’t understand.  Sometimes the adventures have appeared out of nowhere and other times I chose to step into a stretching, uncomfortable venture.  With the risk has been reward of some sort.  I could tell you about the time I went I 125 feet up n the two-man bucket of a Genie lift.  That is 13.5 stories in the air! My knees still go weak at the thought of it. However I can say, “I’ve done it!” 

As I stood on the brink of 2013, I was confused. I felt like I was looking toward a ball of tangled string and I had no idea where to begin unraveling it. It looked knotty and tedious.  But then I asked, or was asked this question. “What if you approach this uncertainty and trial as an adventure?”  Adventure!  Somehow I saw that I could truly anticipate the next few months in spite of the twists, turns, surprises, discomfort, growth pains, dangerous whirlpools, treacherous rapids, getting dunked, a beaten ego, and even people taking snapshots at my most vulnerable moments under the title “Adventure.”  It certainly is a better word for the year 2013 than “confusion” or “despair” or the like. 

Just a couple of days after I settled on “adventure” for my word-of-the-year, I read Romans 8:14-18:

God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" The Message

There it was, encouraging and promising. However from my vantage point, this current adventure doesn’t look like the exhilarating white water rafting, but more like spelunking. Unfamiliar with caving, I found this description that was undoubtedly written by a spelunking enthusiast.

Exploration of caves takes us into a world much different from that above ground, a world of darkness surrounded by rock and mud. Exotic formations, streams and waterfalls, tight crawlways, deep canyons and pits, huge rooms with large blocks of breakdown, crickets, bats and cave rats await the cave explorer. [1]

Well…every true adventure expands one’s comfort zone, develops new skills and strengthens formerly unused muscles.   

Once on a whitewater adventure I was relegated to the “sit and ride” group. I was miffed.  It was no fun not to be in the action. In the action are the rewards.

We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary - we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! Roman 5:2-5 The Message

That Christmas card picture taken at the pinnacle of our family rafting experience was returned to us by our good friend Pat Girgenti at Wayne’s 50^th birthday. It was beautifully framed, she replaced the image of our river guide with a cross and attached this quote from Martin Luther.

If I did not see that the Lord kept watch over the ship, I should long since have abandoned the helm.  But I see Him! Through the storm, strengthening the tackling, handling the yards, spreading the sails—aye more, commanding the very winds!  Should I now be a coward if I abandoned my post?  Let Him govern, let Him carry us forward, let Him hasten or delay, we will fear nothing!

Happy and Adventurous New Year!

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[1]http://cavingintro.net/