Folks--Heavenly Father blesses us in such little ways sometimes that we don't realize it. Last week my sis and I had an experience that made us recognize some of the little blessings.
It was a beautiful, Wednesday evening. We were done with work and mowing lawns; I had eaten a delicious PB&J sandwich. Our Camelbacks were full and our chacos were on. We headed out on a hike. We left our house around 5:30. Hobble Creek was the destination. Earlier this summer we had done a part of this hike, but didn't have time to go all the way down the ridge. We hadn't mapped out our plan, we didn't know how long it was, and we didn't even think about it. We were just headed to Hobble Creek.
It started out great. We were talking and hiking along this fence line on a little two-track. The trail was nice and dirt, like most trails in the mountain are. And as we're hiking along, enjoying our time in nature, Olivia's phone rings. We were surprised that we had service in the boonies! She answered it and hung up fairly fast... It was a dang recording for this guy named Gordon. She's been getting calls for this Gordon for about 2 years now. It's annoying. We were annoyed. We forgot about our annoyance though and kept hiking along. Then the trail turned... It turned away from the edge and what we were hoping was going to be a view of Hobble Creek. We got off the trail and stayed on the ridge. Without a path to follow, we felt like real trail blazers! We were just making our own way across the mountain! Then it started taking a long time. I was getting a little worried that we weren't going to make it to Hobble Creek in time to get back before the sun set. Livi kept saying, "It's gotta be over the next ridge... Well, the next ridge... The next one... Okay, for sure the next one." Finally I said, "Liv. The sun's gonna go down really soon and we've got a LONG hike back. We need to just take our picture and go." She said, "Just to the top of this ridge and I swear we'll go. I would hate to come all this way, get this close, and not get the view." So I agreed to go to the next ridge and thankfully it was the ridge with the view!
We got our pictures (the amateur selfiers that we are) and headed back. Deciding that we needed to find a trail back, we went away from the ridge and found the way back. The sun was getting close to setting and we needed to haul cheeks to get back before the sun set. We started to jog. After a while we came to this beautiful setting with some dead pine trees, set against live ones, with the sun just shining like a spotlight on them. The trail we were on curved away from the scene, so having not learned our lesson, we got off the trail. No sooner had we done that, we found ourselves walking through a bit of a swamp with some rain spitting on us. But how could we just run away without taking a picture? I mean if we're there, we've gotta capture it!
We got our picture and took off on a jog again. When we stopped for a second, we looked behind us and saw a sheet of rain. In the distance too, there were lightening strikes, and ever since Livi and I came close to getting struck by lightening on a hike, I've been about terrified of lightening unless I'm in my house watching out the window. It was a beautiful sunset though, and with the rain... again we had to stop and photograph the scene.
Isn't that the beauty of the earth? It is. But also notice the placement of the sun. It's set and we aren't even half way back to the truck... I started to get a little bit panicky. Another tid-bit of information: before almost every hike my mom gets really nervous about us going out without a plan or a gun to a place where we can't call for help... I don't know why that would get her nerved up. It must be a mom thing. So, at this point we knew Mom was getting nervous at the house. We remembered the call for Gordon... We had cell service on that ridge! So we set to jogging again. It was 9:00-ish when we made it to the ridge and called Mom. When we got through to her at the house, she informed us that we had called with perfect timing because she and Dad had called Trevor and were coming on a search party for us. Trevor had just gotten to the house. Here's where we start to see blessings from the Lord. If Livi hadn't gotten that call for Gordon, we would have never known that we had service. We would not have called Mom. We would not have stopped Dad and Trevor from coming. And we later learned that they were going to search for us in a different place than we were... So they would have gotten lost as well. Thanks be to Heavenly Father for 2 years of phone calls for Gordon.
Mom wanted to know how long until we would be home... We were still probably 2-3 miles from the truck and although the sun was set, we still had okay lighting. We told her we were about a mile from the truck and we'd be fine. (Don't lie to your mother, unless it's going to keep her from having a nervous breakdown... even then, choose little stretches of truth, not flat lies.) After the phone call, we felt better. We were on the path. The sun was going down, but all we had to do was follow the path. After a little while longer we thought we were at the point we had hiked to earlier in the season that turned down the mountain to the truck. On that earlier hike, we took a picture of the view from the top, and where we were looked just like it. We confidently stepped off the path. We left the fence line. We walked down this somewhat path for a little and then decided it was wrong. We went running across the mountain around this little grove of trees, looking for another path or a vantage point. We didn't find a path, but Livi saw a bend in the road where we parked the truck... It was still a ways away. We went back to the somewhat path and took a few steps down it when Livi, being in tune with the Spirit, suggested we prayed. We stopped right there and petitioned the Lord for help. We knew immediately that where we were was wrong and we needed to go back to the fence line. When we got back to the fence where we turned off, just to be sure, Livi looked at our picture from the time we hiked there before and held it up to the view... We were not in the same place.
Onward we went. By this point it was close to 9:30. It was getting quite dark. But, you know how eyes adjust to the dark... We felt like we still had pretty good vision. Finally we reached the point that we were sure went down to the truck. Livi looked at her picture and it looked the same. We again stepped off the well worn path, to a little, not so often travelled two-track. Then we came to a fork in the road. Livi stayed calm while I cried a little. I was scared of the lightening. I was scared of getting soaked. I was scared of some animal coming out and attacking two little girls. I was just scared. We took a few steps down one path and Livi suggested we pray again. I said it this time and immediately knew that we were on the wrong path. When we ended the prayer, we both turned and back tracked to the other path. We knew then, because of the assurance of answered prayers, that we were on the right path. We went across a little meadow and then we dropped down into the trees right above the truck. By then it was dark. I couldn't see well at all. But I know that it was another blessing from the Lord that I could see so well up until that point. It had been dark for a while, but our eyes were able to adjust really well.
After being scared and hiking and lost (Livi hates that word. She says, "We weren't lost. We just weren't sure all the time where the end was.") the truck was the most welcome sight I'd seen in a long time. We got in the truck and drove home. The whole way down into town, we talked about how much the Lord had blessed us. From a phone call for Gordon, to immediate answer to prayers, He was with us. We felt that because we're striving to do what's right, He was willing to bless us. Heavenly Father was mindful of us and helped us out of what I felt was a very stressful and scary situation. We also decided that next time we probably won't be so lucky, because Heavenly Father blessed us with brains to make better decisions than we did that night. But, I'm so thankful now for the experience. My testimony in prayer and in faith grew tremendously. I know that Heavenly Father loves His children and wants to see us all happy and safe. He blessed us. He will bless you.
