I’m not sure exactly how I’m this many years old and have lived in Gurley, Alabama for exactly 1/3 of those years and have never heard about or hiked this trail till yesterday. I’m so glad I found the Bethel Springs Nature Preserve, thanks to my sister Sami, who sent me a link with a beautiful photo of a waterfall and she just asked “Have you ever been here?” This amazing gorge is just fifteen minutes from my house and, if you hike to the top, you feel like you are even closer to God’s house. (But wear a good tread on your feet and take some water for the arduous part of the trail prior to the top. If you take kids, be prepared for yellow jackets, slips and slides, and be sure someone knows where you are going, just in case. Also, if you have kids along, give yourself a good three hours before dark if you intend to see the falls. You do not want to be in this beautiful place after dark, but your cell phone internet will likely work throughout the trek!)
The most basic, most important lessons, for kids, seem to most frequently be learned outdoors. Sometimes in the frenzy of getting all the workbook pages done, we forget this. The lessons for little hearts were everywhere yesterday. Here are a few that come to mind.
1. Empathy. Character and success require (absolutely demand) empathy. It’s not a big deal when someone else is getting stung or sliding down, or getting blisters on her feet, but when it gets personal, it’s suddenly urgent. Apologies came when the personal moments prodded them. “I’m sorry I said ‘You just have to stop that screaming when that bee stung you.I know you were hurting.'”
2. Sharing. I thought …”nature preserve”—like Green Mountain or the short swamp trail kind of thing. I should have done a little more research. I did not prepare for what came close to a rock climbing challenge for many yards and, with three kids, you can’t just jog back to the car for more of whatever you need. I didn’t bring along nearly enough water for that sort of obstacle course. But Colleyanna did. And she and Ezra had a good bottle for refilling at the waterfall. And we all survived on their happily shared provisions.
3. Perseverance. There are four great trails in the preserve. One is a baby trail, a little loop that I’d recommend for anyone with a stroller. The next is also a short little hike down to a manmade landing where you view an 1800s spring house “refrigerator”. The third is a slow but arduous climb to the falls. This one was a commitment. It took a couple of hours of climbing over rough terrain. We came to points when some of the kids thought, “We just can’t keep going.” Someone else would say “But we’ve come so far that, now, that the closest route back to our car is to push on and connect to the other trail that descends. “But we can’t.” …”I think we can.”…”But what if it gets dark in here?”…”We still have a couple of hours…”But we don’t have much water.” But we had reached the point of no return. Heading back down without reaching the falls was now going to take longer than getting there and descending on the other trail. So we learned we had to persevere.
4. Goodness. The word is in the Bible some 50 times and it most often refers to the goodness of our God. When you look at giant boulders placed by God, to which it’s so very difficult to even ascend, much less impossible to move, and you realize that His springs of sustenance flow over and from those rocks, you stand amazed at His goodness. You think of words like these from the Psalmist:
O my soul, you have said to the LORD,
“You are my Lord,
My goodness is nothing apart from You.”
You feel your own smallness and sinfulness in the presence of a mighty and good God who allows you to call him”Father.”
5. Guidance. The signs on the trees marking the trail were teeny…easy to miss; about four by four. They were minimized to prohibit distraction from His beauty, I’m sure. But as the darkness began to loom in the late afternoon, and, still there were no sounds except the leaves rustling beneath little feet, I began to have a better eye for those little signs. I had to be SURE I was on the right path. There were no other cars in that parking lot, by now. That meant there were no other souls in that giant forest gorge except for me and my three little ones. I started to think about preserving water and cell service. I took off my socks and gave them to the child whose feet were blistering. She had to keep coming. We could not sit down and nurse the sting, the blisters or the slightly sprained wrist that had “caught the fall”. 
The kids started to be eagle-eye watchers for those little signs and they even started a game of “How-many signs-will-there-be-before-the car?” (Ezra won. There were ten more and he had guessed exactly ten. But passing ten signs is almost a “forever.” ) There were occasional mini-celebrations when we discovered a marker that proved we had taken the right turn at the giant rock that seemed to be inviting us in more than one direction or that we had opted correctly at the sign that seemed to be putting us back in a circle to the same point. Guidance became key. Words on a sign on a tree, instead of how we “felt” about our direction, were everything. That’s how it is with the printed word of God. There’s no successful navigation for lost souls without the WORD of life.
But the climax of the climb, of course, was at the very tip-top of two converging trails. I have honestly never heard kids so excited as when we actually heard the water…except for the squeals when we actually saw it. “I see it! I see it, Mammy. Oh Mammy it’s beautiful!” Those exclamations were loud and exuberant cries echoing in that canyon. I’m thinking that’s a little microcosm of what 
it’s going to be like after the arduous climb that is life. And, in that case, there will not be a descending trail. There will not be the sad “Mammy, do we have to leave already? I want to stay here. Let me get one more drink.” We will get to stay. No darkness will loom. No fear of misdirection or of running out of water. We will get to stay—where the Lamb is the light of endless day and the waters of the river of life flow freely. All fear will be forever eradicated.
From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. (Psalm 61:2)
It’s been a good reminder for me. In our local family, there are several “baby sisters” (women who are brand new Christians and have their own unique needs). In the past year, these young Christians have faced all of the “regular” issues: sick children, financial issues, home repairs, problems at school, and stresses of jobs. But often, there are bigger issues that may come their way. Though some, but not all of these, may be the lingering effects of having lived years of their adult lives in the world and not in the Lord, they are real and traumatic, nonetheless.
This is the day I’ve been working and waiting for since the idea for this study crystallized about six months ago. There are so many people to whom I owe a large debt of gratitude for helping me in various ways to get the study written, ready and distributed. It’s been a journey, already, but the best part of it happens now.
I will never laugh so hard in an antique store again (as that day that I fell down a flight of stairs holding a stack of antique dishes, making it all the way to the bottom, with clatter and flair, but still holding every dish and not breaking a single one!). Pat Deasy could laugh at me, with me, beside me, over me and while pulling me up!…And make me laugh just as hard!).
I will never get to wander through fields of giant sunflowers with anyone who loves plants as much as Pat.
Who has a friend who will drop everything almost any Thursday night you call up—even last minute__ and say “Can y’all go with us to Marvins for fish?” I had that friend. I’m not sure I can go back to Marvin’s anymore. Her anticipated sweet potatoes couldn’t taste as sweet and good anymore. She’d go all day on Thursday without eating, just so we could sit there and talk and eat, and eat and talk, on Thursday night. She’d bring me the Early America Life Magazines that she’d already looked through (I have a stack now waiting for me and they make me cry), and we would talk…about the decor in the magazines, about Dorcas class and that sweet first great grandchild and she’d want an update on each one of our kids, too.
I’ll miss the amazing flair she had for vintage and Victorian clothing. She could pull off, with perfection, what nobody else could. I loved her beaded clutch bags and puffy poplin blouses and the antique laces and lace-up ankle boots with tiny heels.
I’ll
I miss her so much. I wish I could have said a temporary farewell. But she has already “fared well.” Because she trusted God and obeyed Him, I’ll get to hear her eternal welcome in that morning of joy. I miss her, but she is not missing a thing. The valley of the shadow of death is, in reality, the frightening vale we all travel every day.
I loved this month’s study. Don’t you love the dig on Simon, the Cyrenean? (Every time, I type that place of his origin, auto-correct turns it into a type of dog from the mountains in Spain.) But Cyrenaica, a real place in Libya was home to Simon, who was compelled to bear the cross of Christ. I loved learning about the ossuary containing an Alexander, son of Simon of Cyrene–a box that still is hidden in a back room of the Hebrew museum in Jerusalem. It’s a box that was found in a sealed and unlooted tomb. Now, I know that we cannot be sure this is “our” Alexander, but it’s really faith-building to look into the scriptures about him. I believe he and Rufus must have been prominent in the early church. Why would Mark have pointed out (Mark 15), to early Christians. that the Simon who had carried the cross was their father, if the early church did not know who Rufus and Alexander were?