This weekend Mandy and Drake and I are up in the mountains with the singles’ group from Oak Mountain. We’ve been leading worship, and I taught a little bit last night. Great group of folks.
Yesterday, Mandy and Drake and I loaded up in the truck and drove to this place in the middle of nowhere with a weird banjo player, and rented some tubes to go tubing down this river. Easy trip. Very relaxing. Much fun. Mandy and I stayed close through the 2 mile journey down the river, most of the time having our tubes locked via my feet. Drake wanted no part of that. He wanted to be on his own – which was fine. The current wasn’t strong, and he had a life-vest, but the water was – one degree above freezing. So cold in fact that on the way home I thought my truck was wet – no no no. My back and butt were cold . . .
Anyway – We floated down the river and stayed in the current – but Drake, wanting to be “on his own” drifted over towards the bank at one point – and some guy had just cut his grass, and there were weeds and grass clippings and flower petals all in this fairly still water that Drake had now found himself in. So I paddled over – and stuck out my foot, and said “grab my foot.” He grabs it, then pushes me away – thinking he would push himself back into the current – only to find that he pushed himself farther into the stagnant mess. I gave him the “now watcha gonna do?” as he had pushed me back into the current. So he then proceeds to hop out of his tube (water is only 2 feet deep), and immediately SCREAMS because the water is so cold, and now he’s waist deep in grass clippings – gross. “DADDY, DADDY, DADDY!”
So I paddle back over and pick the boy up and dump him back into his tube. We had a good lesson when we got out – he was cold and wet – but had grabbed the foot to begin with – he’d be dry, and warm. My thought? How many times does the Father swim back over after we’ve declared we want to be on our own – only to pick us out of the grass clippings, or weeds, or absolute muck and filth, and put us back into our tube . . .
