True Recent Story

A true story of God's faithfulness from my friend Denae:

I just spent a good portion of the last weekend lost and freezing cold in a cave. I believe the grand total of hours was 22 - and that doesn't include the 2 hour hike up the mountain and the 2 hour hike back down afterwards.

So this is my story.

The plan was to check out some sweet caves - not really well known but heard about enough to pull me and some friends six hours from Edmonton to explore them. We thought it was a great plan - until we couldn't find the exit of the cave.

The trip was supposed to take 6 hours. You repel down 5 areas in the cave, walk through some freaking amazing caverns, and crawl out of the cave. The end. Right? Wrong.

This email could be ridiculously long and boring...so I'll shorten it with "We couldn't find the exit to the cave". What happened was we ended up going through the wrong sequence of caverns/crawl spaces (no wider then the the width of my body), a waterfall, and numerous other things to find ourselves in a cavern at 2:00 a.m. with no exit except the way we just came in. We had entered the cave at 3:30 p.m.

We were freezing cold because we hadn't planned on being inside for so long. It was around 4 degrees Celcius...but colder because it is damp and we were wet from the water. Everyone had to pee but apparantly you aren't supposed to pee in caves because things in caves can't break and decompose down like they can outside. Well, we peed in that cavern. One corner of it was where we slept, the other where we peed.

We decided the only way to stay warm and not risk hypothermia was by spooning right up against each other with our arms wrapped around the person in front of us and our legs interlocked. That worked for a short period of time but soon everyone was just uncontrollably shaking from the cold. We decided that every half hour we would get up and move around to ward off the cold. The problem was that even if we were freezing cold on the ground...no one wanted to move. We did manage to get moving though...and our favorite selections of motivational music (compliments of us) was "Everybody Dance Now" and "The Chicken Dance" - pretty much anything that had a beat and we could belt out.

We "slept" until 7:30 and then knew that we had to get back at least to the main part of the cave - because if anyone was to find us they would find us there, and not way back wherever we were.

There were 6 people an 11 granola bars left. We figured that if we had 1/3 of a bar every 10 hours we could hold out for 40 hours until Search and Rescue (hopefully) came.

To make a freaking long story short this is what I came out of that cave with...after 22 long, cold, and trying hours.

1. God is amazing. He totally heard our desperate prayers and answered them. Most times all we could say was "God help" or "Show us the way out". I thought I was confident in God before..but now I am absolutely certain that my God is who he says He is.
2. Everything in my life was harshly knocked into perspective. The things that matter (according to me (and I am biased)) are: God and relationships. Food, being warm, and everything else just didn't matter.
3. God is faithful. He was constant and ever so present. The six of us did not lose hope - we knew our sights were set on so much more then this life and that being here is so temporary. We would stand for hours on end in pitch darkness holding each other to stay warm - and even in those moments, no, ESPECIALLY in those moments, God was nearer then my own breath.
4. What is mine is yours - no questions. If you need it, take it.

I really can't express how consumed I am with...life. I feel so priviledged to be alive - to smell air that isn't stagnant, to feel the warmth from a hug, to eat and not ration out a granola bar into 6 pieces to make it last.

In that cave I was ready to embrace death if that was what was to happen. But it didn't. I am here and alive now. There is a reason - God is going to use me and He is using me. I had no regrets about how I had lived my life or what I had and had not done. It was amazing to be in a place where I was excited to meet God...but it wasn't yet to be.

I will not be quiet, I cannot be shaken because my God is the unmovable and unchangeable one. When I walk through the worst place imaginable still He is there and will carry me when I cannot move. When I am weak He is so strong. When I struggle He is molding my character and giving me hope to carry on. That was one of the songs we sang in the cave - "And He's giving me HOPE to carry on".

Anyways...I learned a lot this weekend. I am severely short on sleep so if something didn't make sense...check it with me later and maybe I can produce some straight answers.

I really have nothing else to say except again...God is faithful and He has your back...and front...and sides.