Another Alaska story

Our trips to Alaska were two rather frightening experiences for this city girl. I feel lonely and overwhelemed in open spaces, and for each trip I remember praying a lot for protection and strength. Before our second trip I had an interesting experience in prayer. I was awake but the room I was in seemed to be like a peaceful campsite all of a sudden, and I felt the Lord assuring me that no harm would come to us on the trip. In particular, I somehow knew that we would not be harmed by bears.

Despite that experience in prayer, I still struggled with being terribly afraid. Everyday it was an act of will to turn to God in faith and to draw on Him for strength to keep going (it was a gruelling trip since there are no trails in Denali, just wilderness. We had to use a topo map to decide where to hike, which sometimes led to surprises).

Towards the end of our week backpacking, we made our way down a river valley that was full of dense willow bushes. These bushes are taller than people and can easily hide even large animals like bears or moose. We made as much noise as possible to warn animals in the vicinity that we were coming (sometimes a bad confrontation can be avoided if surprise is eliminated from the equation). But nonetheless we were pretty tense and eager to get out of that valley.

It was hard to tell from our topo map where the river would be good to cross, and we came to a point where we were considering fording the river. I prayed a moment, and felt that we should not cross, but keep going as we were. Not much further along, I glanced across the river and saw a mother grizzly with two cubs headed upstream on the opposite bank. They were maybe 50 feet away, though in my memory they were almost close enough to touch. My heart stopped and I stared at her. She glanced at me and just kept walking. When I had calmed down enough to think, I realized that if we had crossed the river, there was a good chance we would have been nose to nose with her. I remember very clearly that at that moment the Lord spoke to me and said, You see, I am able to keep you from harm.