This past week has been trialsome. I have wrestled back and forth in my mind and with God. Do you ever feel like you hear something from God, but you’re not quite sure if it’s God Himself or your own thoughts?
When I began this journey with the WRGY it was very much a hasty and audacious decision.
I received an email about the route reveal webcast, so I signed up and watched it when it went live. Before the webcast ended, I knew the 2018 WRGY was what God had called me to do. I began working on my application, and I submitted it shortly after. How was I so sure that the WRGY was God’s will for me? I didn’t pray about it. I didn’t fast. I didn’t hear God’s voice. It was very unlike me to be so rash because typically, I predict numerous possible outcomes before making a decision. I believe God has been calling me to do a missions trip for quite sometime, and He knew that if I were to dwell on applying, more than likely I would not have been obedient. Throughout the webcast and into that night, I felt a PEACE that I had felt so strongly only once before.
My mom got a call this past June from one of my brother’s friends, and she could just sense something was wrong. My brother had gone on a hiking trip with three of his friends that day to a mountain about an hour a half away from our home. No one that went on the trip would answer their phones, and the friend that did call my mom was on his way to the mountain, and all he knew was that Blake was in trouble. My mom, dad, and I got in the car and just started driving. We didn’t know what had happened to Blake or if he was even alive. When we finally got a phone call from the park ranger’s wife, she told us that Blake had fallen off of the ninety-five foot waterfall, and that she didn’t know what kind of state he was in. I felt a PEACE sweep over me. My dad was trying to hold it together for my mom who had completely lost it. I had never seen anyone cry more intensely, yell, or scream to the point of almost vomiting. As I’m in the backseat with my dad’s phone, mom’s phone, and my phone sending out texts to pray and answering phone calls, PEACE swept over me in the center of complete chaos. I felt that because no one was telling us what was happening that Blake had died, and they wanted to wait to tell us in person. As I was crying, all I knew to do was to praise God for the seventeen years I got to spend with Blake. As we got closer to the mountain, the park ranger’s wife called again and told us that they were getting Blake out of the pool, he was conscious, and he would soon be med-flighted to the hospital an hour away.
He, along with his friends, were on a path that they weren’t supposed to be on. As Blake was walking across the top of the falls, he slipped and began stumbling on the rocks. My GOD allowed one of his friends to grab him by his backpack, giving Blake a split second to look at what was below him before his friend let go. My GOD gave Blake the strength to push off of the rocks. My GOD provided rain ahead of time, so the water that Blake fell into wasn’t as shallow as it is normally. My GOD put a nurse at the bottom of the falls to help Blake. My GOD is a miracle working God. Death seemed inevitable, BUT Blake walked out of the hospital less than twenty-four hours after arriving. He had a concussion, a minor lung injury, a small eye fracture in his eye socket, and a few bruises and scrapes.
PEACE. This word conjures up a way that God sometimes uses to speak to me. I am peaceful in that I am following the will of God. I have peace to go on a nine month long missions trip to places I have never been before with people I have never met before. I have peace in abandoning ‘privileged’ America. I have peace in extinguishing comfortability and diving into the unknown. So no, God never said audibly, “Annika go on the WRGY.” God used PEACE to call me. I’m glad I know the peace speaker!
