Head Up, Feet Down

When our sons, David and Aaron, were eight and ten years old, we were on vacation in Colorado. One day we booked an adventure - white water rafting down the Colorado River. 

But that sunny adventure went wrong when our raft capsized and spilled our little family of four, along with our guide, into the racing Colorado River. 

After the shock of being plunged under water and losing all sense of direction, I finally burst above water and gasped for air. Fear chilled every part of me as I yelled, “Where are my babies?!” and was carried downstream. I had no control whatsoever, except to remember and do what the guide had instructed: “If you fall into the river, helmeted head upstream, feet downstream.”

Head up, feet down. And we made it out of the river that day. 

Fast forward to February 2021. David’s health was declining from almost two years of battling colon cancer. In one of our private conversations, Cam and I recalled that Colorado River rafting debacle, and reminded each other of our guide’s instructions: 

“Head up. Feet down,” we told each other as we cried and embraced. 

We can’t do anything. We have zero control. Other than praying and taking care of David, we have no control over this. 

It was like being carried down that raging river all over again. 

One morning, I was crying out to God as I’d done day and night for months, and I sensed God’s voice:

I am the River.

Our little family, which now included our daughter-in-law, Rachel, was in a rapidly moving, changing situation over which we had no control. 

When God whispered, “I am the River” to me, He gave me a sense that no matter what happens in this situation, this life-giving, boundlessly loving, infinite, all-powerful God, who I still believe is good, has this situation. Come. What. May. 

Because “wherever the river flows, it will bring life.” Ezekiel 47:9

How will you emerge from this situation? We never know. We’re just not in control. But this great God of love is moving you along.

I’m real because He’s so real.

~ Nancy

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