Chasing Waterfalls

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” –Psalm 46:10

I’m going to tell you guys a story, as well as tell a good example regarding a God moment. Everyone, including non-believers, has had a God moment or two but it usually takes us a while to process them because our minds are finite and we often have trouble connecting the dots. Thinking back over my life up until the present day, I’ve had a lot of God moments; some so subtle it ended up taking me at least a year, sometimes longer, to figure out that is what they were and to see the reasoning behind it, as much as I can see. Before I tell my story, you first need to understand the official definition of a God moment and what they typically are about. When I looked it up in the Urban Dictionary it said: it is a sudden feeling of an inexplicable joy one gets when something romantic or idealistic occurs.

Then, another definition from an article called “The Daily Roar” said the following: unexplained moments that impact the way you see the world; when something you have been praying or thinking about happens in your life; a moment that was meant to happen and fate intended you to be a part of, etc. My definition of a God moment is simple: when you feel that He is right there, holding your hand, giving you a hug, providing/causing a miracle, anything unexplainable by human standards; something that could only be done by a superior being, an unconditional love that is indirectly direct (meaning the moment is usually so fleeting that you don’t fully recognize it until some time has passed). I definitely had multiple God moments, but the one that is the most recent, and one of the scariest I’ve had to go through happened in August 2020.

My friends and I decided to take a day trip up to Blackwater Falls, up in Davis, WV in Tucker County. The morning had started out fine; hiking, taking some beautiful photos, jamming out to music, and then eating lunch at the lodge inside the state park itself. During lunch, we got to talking about trying to find a swimming hole, or at least maybe a creek/river that we could swim in. We had tried this little “beach” inside the state park, but it was kind of gross at that time and we didn’t have any water shoes with us. I think it was also closed due to COVID, or maybe you could only swim between a certain set of hours, but we didn’t get to swim. Once we got back to the car, I decided to look up some local swimming spots; just when we were about to give up, we came across a place called Douglas Falls.

Douglas Falls is about 20-30 minutes away from Blackwater Falls State Park, known for its 3 “tiered” waterfalls, and the notorious red/orange rock-bed of the river. When we finally got there after weaving in and out of townhouses, we drove down a trail that took us past the first two, only stopping to take a couple neat pictures of them before we found a little parking area close to the end of the trail, or so we thought at the time. We walked down the trail, coming to a gate; we wanted to see the waterfall, but we thought that because the gate was closed, there must’ve been a different way to get down to the falls. We found out later that there was a gap in the gate for people to continue down the trail, but we were impatient and found a new trail to follow. It was steep, but it got us onto the top part of the falls. There was a large, dry area of rocks not too far from the little shoreline we had walked out onto, and we wanted to go over to that area and see if we could get some overhead shots of the falls since they were right there.

Me, being smart and knowledgeable about waterfalls due to years of girl scouting and traveling to see waterfalls/spectacular natural landmarks, took the calm water path, where it was still flowing but it wasn’t fast. The rocks were still slimy, but it was easily maneuverable. As soon as I got onto the dry part, I started walking across to the end, finding a ledge I could climb down onto to take a really cool side-perspective of the waterfall. Just as I was about to get onto the ledge, I heard a shout. Keep in mind, we’re in the middle of a ravine, the waterfall is literally right there and if you’ve ever seen/been near a waterfall, they are loud so I could barely hear; ergo, the shout was barely loud enough to hear, but it was enough to get me to turn around and see my friend laying partially in the water, partially on the rock. Come to find out, he had taken the rougher path, the one crossing the rushing water and he slipped on the last rock, landing where he had fallen in between.

I jogged over as fast as I could without putting myself at risk of falling, and saw that he was having a seizure. I tried to get his attention, but then I saw a large stream of blood flowing downstream, so I jumped into action, using a little knowledge of seeing how extreme wounds are taken care of from some of the medical/crime shows I’ve watched. I found a very large wound on the back of his head, so I put my hand against it in order to try and slow down the blood-flow, while also moving him completely onto the dry rock. Finally, our other two friends had gotten over to us, using the safe way, and his girlfriend was the one who told me to move him onto his side (since when people have seizures, you move them onto their side so they don’t choke on their saliva); he’s a bit on the heavier side, especially for me at the time because I hadn’t done a lot of exercise yet, and they managed to get him on his side while I frantically made my first 911 call.

Miraculously, I got them on the phone, managing to tell them everything that had happened, them telling us what we should do to keep him safe/stable, and telling them where we were right before the signal cut out. Our friend ran up onto the ridge to wait for the medics, and his girlfriend and I waited with him until the medics came down to us. There was a moment after the seizure that his girlfriend had thought we had lost him because he appeared to have stopped breathing, but soon after that he did recover enough to make him conscious again, though he didn’t remember falling. The whole ordeal lasted 30-40 minutes, but it felt like forever. Once we had arrived at the hospital, his girlfriend went into the recovery room, and my other friend stayed out with me, providing comfort while we waited for news. We only had to wait for an hour, but he did have to get 10 staples in the back of his head and a prescription for his mild concussion.

To say that was a traumatic ordeal is an understatement. My God moment, besides the obvious miracle of having enough time and a decent signal to call 911 and tell them what they needed to know about the situation, was the fact that our days are indeed limited, and you MUST have a strong faith in any/all circumstances. It showed me that oftentimes, when you are afraid or something scares you, it’s usually what you need to do; it also is typically a good indicator that you are indeed following God’s path when you do the thing(s) that scare you because you are showing that you’re trusting in His will, leaving it all up to him and that it is major brownie points in Gods’ eyes. It also confirmed my desire to go on mission for a year, following in God’s footsteps, seeing what life is supposed to be like for a devoted, ambassador of Christ. But after seeing all of what He did through this situation, I knew that without a doubt, God would protect my squad and I while we are off doing his work, following his will, and any fears that I had about safety were washed away and replaced with his gracious peace.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” –Colossians 4:5-6