Trusting God can be hard—really hard at times. This month has taught me deeper level of dependence on Him. To trust Him when our team is on a bus going up a mountain side at night; and I can see the wheel skim off the cliff during a turn. To trust Him when I have only two outfits, a sleeping bag and some trekking food in my pack. To trust Him when I am days into a trek and I become injured. To trust Him to take care of me when the water is deep.
Before leaving on the Race I wrote a blog about when Jesus was walking on water and He called out His friend Peter to join Him. Peter walked on water; but began to fear and started to sink. I was reminded of this story again this month when I slipped on a rock while crossing a stream, hit my head and fell into deeper water. My head was bleeding from a laceration, my vision was blurry, and I had nausea and dizziness. Plus, I lost my glasses. Everyone I was with immediately rallied around me, helped me out of the stream and in a miracle found my unbroken glasses. I had no time to doubt. God has surrounded me with people who would care for me.
As my teammates cleaned and assessed my wound, a random Nepalese man came down from the hills and ground up surrounding plants in his hands. He motioned to put the mash on my head to slow the bleeding. Even through my concussion-caused disorientation, I’m pretty sure he was an angel. I was a far distance from anything; and still had an hour to the village we were heading to. With trust in God, the herbal dressing and bandage from the first aid kit was placed on my head; and we continued up the mountain. I trusted Him when things were not even close to ideal. I trusted that God would protect me after my head injury; and that I would not do further damage in continuing to hike. I trusted that I am supposed to follow Him out into deeper water.
At the village my teammate preached the gospel in the center of town to people who came out of their mud houses with thatched roofs to gather around us. Afterwards we were praying for a woman who became blind after her husband hit her with rocks. She began to cry and talk about flashbacks she had about being tortured when she was younger. One of my teammates spoke up saying how much this woman is loved- how much God has always loved her; and how we would have hiked the mountains 100 times just to say how much she is loved. I wrapped the weeping woman in my arms and whispered “I love you” in Nepali in her ear over and over. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a truer picture of the Gospel and Jesus’s love for us—how He uses regular people to be His hands and feet— to follow Him where He calls you and to hug those in need it. After a moment the woman began to hold me, Katy and Alexis and began to dance and sing with us. She clapped, twirled and jumped. She was changed through the love of her Father.
I would have missed this if I feared for myself or doubted that God was protecting me in everything that day. I would have missed seeing the beauty that’s in the depth of deeper water.
