My first summer at Our Saviour’s, we were doing Summer Stretch—a program for middle school students to do service and a fun activity. One week’s activity was tubing on the Cannon River.
We had about 20-30 students, adults, and myself and my friend, Michelle, who was the youth minister at the Catholic church at the time. She and I decided that we would get kayaks so that the kids could see us better and they would be easier to maneuver if something happened and we needed to get to the students quicker. She went up to the front, and I went to the back of the group. We started just fine, but 10 minutes into the trip, there was one spot toward the left that was moving a bit faster. All of our kids made it through just fine, except for one. He must have gone a little further to the left or hit a rapid just right and lost his tube. I yelled to him to get to the bank, which he did, and I paddled over to get to him. He was fine, but still missing his tube.
At this point, it had gotten lodged under a fallen tree near the bank. I decided to paddle up to try to get it and quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen. I just couldn’t get it free. I had never been tubing on the Cannon River so I wasn’t sure how safe it would be for him to just float with his life jacket next to me, so I thought of another plan to get his tube. We climbed through the bushes to get to the place where his tube was at along the river. Near this fallen tree was an undercut bank; it cut in several feet, and was making a whirlpool. His tube was spinning in this spot and stuck. There was also another tree limb parallel to the fallen tree. So I reached on to the limb and started climbing out on the fallen tree to get closer to the tube. I managed to barely kick free the tube, but the current was too strong to grab it (it floated down the river and we never got it back…side note, invited a small panic to the rest of the group when they discovered we were missing). At this point I realize that the water is deeper than I thought and the current is much stronger than I thought. I looked down at the undercut bank and it dawned on me that if I were to let go or slip, I would likely get sucked underneath and drown. I was struggling to stay steady and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I looked back to the way I came and realized too that it was too dangerous to go back that way. I started panicking and got really scared. I thought, I could die right now (who knows if that’s really true or not, but at the time I really believed it) AND not only that, but this kid would have to watch me! So, I prayed.
Another side note, I told this story in a sermon once and I must have told it really dramatically and at one of the services everyone kept laughing like there was going to be a punchline and I had to tell them a couple times that it was actually really scary and I really thought I was going to die.
Normally when I would pray for God’s help, I would barely ask God. I would excuse God before I even got the question out. “Dear Lord, please help me with (a, b, c…). I understand if you won’t do that, I know you are a loving God, so it’s okay if you don’t…” etc. This time I prayed really differently. I said with as much faith and trust as I could muster, “GOD! SAVE ME!” In that moment I had mental clarity that I hadn’t had just before and I felt like I had physical strength that I didn’t have before. I don’t remember exactly how I did it, but somehow I pulled myself onto the bank and climbed up. Me and this kid got a ride back to shore and played board games until the rest of the group joined us again.
Even though it was super terrifying to me, it's changed the way I pray.
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