How long and how far...

Have you ever been hiking a trail that is much longer than you realized and is taking much more energy than you had planned on or were prepared for?

Just before the start of my senior year in academy (high school), I moved out to Scottsdale, Arizona, to Thunderbird Adventist Academy. I was planning to start my senior year there and had gone out during the summer before so I could become familiar with the school and begin working to help pay for my room and board and tuition.

I don't remember if it was a youth group or some other group that I joined with, but whatever group it was, we decided to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon. We wanted to hike down the Bright Angel trail (9.3 miles) to the campground, spend the night, and hike back up the following morning. Going down was fairly easy, although near the end it was starting to get dark, which made it a little scary, but we all made it down quickly and spent the night on the floor of the canyon.

The next morning, bright and early, before anyone else got up, I decided I wanted to get a head start going back up the canyon. I had come to know that the Arizona sun was indeed very hot by mid-day and there was no way I wanted to still be climbing the canyon. What I didn't think about when I had this bright idea and as I got started on the trail back up is that I didn't have enough water in my canteen to keep me from getting dehydrated and enough food to keep my blood sugar normal. To say the least, as I kept climbing and climbing up the canyon, I became more and more dehydrated and my blood sugar dropped further and further and it was harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other.

As I continued to hike, I began to feel as if I would never make it back up that canyon and began to worry about dying out there. I didn't know any of the other people on the trail since I had left all of my group back at the camp, which was very dangerous for me to have done. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one on the trail that day, otherwise I might would have died. Near the end of the trail when I was just barely functioning, someone gave me an orange to bring my blood sugar back up. Someone else gave me water from their canteen.

Well, I did make it back up to the top of the canyon, but was severely reprimanded by the park rangers at the station. I had to lay down for several hours, while they gave me water to rehydrate me and kept a close watch over me until my own group members arrived and we all headed back to school.

I remember thinking several times on the grueling climb back up that day that I just didn't know if I would make it. I could barely force one foot in front of another. It was the feeling of reaching your limit, of being stretched, whether emotionally, physically, spiritually, or mentally or in every area, and wondering if you are going to make it or if you might just lay down and "die."

This is what this jobless and moneyless situation feels like to me. I feel stretched to the utmost and I think, Lord, how far and how long are you going to stretch me? Can we have a break? Stop and rest and have some water to drink? How long, O' Lord, how long?

Well, I didn't die that day, hiking up the Grand Canyon, and I daresay that somehow I will survive this too. Only God knows just how far and how long I can be stretched before "breaking." And only God knows why He has chosen to allow this "stretching" to happen and to allow it to continue beyond anything I had imagined, but I sure hope I come forth as "gold," and not just "silver" out of this one! LOL!

On to another day of being "stretched" to the utmost!