white water rafting with Jesus

Last weekend I went white water rafting down the Ocoee River in eastern Tennessee. Shocked? I am and I did it. Back in April groupon ran a special deal on white water rafting down the middle part of the Ocoee River. Some friends from church decided to try and get a group together to go. They asked me if I would like to go. I said no. I have a slight fear of water. It comes from a moment when I was five and I saw my three year old cousin fall into the pond. She didn't drown. My grandaddy jumped right in and got her out, but the whole thing scared me. This lead to me not really liking the water. Add to that never learning how to swim without holding my nose and you have a fear of water. There were many years I avoided the water which only made my fear worse so I am trying to get more comfortable in the water. My other reason for saying no originally was the fact that one of my mom's friend's wife died rafting. So I said a long time ago I would never do it. Then I decided to face my fear so I bought the groupon for rafting. We drove up to Ocoee, TN on Friday. I was pretty nervous. I also happened to bruise my tailbone on Thursday so the car ride up there wasn't all that comfortable and I started to think about how much I would be hurting after rafting with my bruised tailbone. We stopped at a Walmart up there. We stuck out like sore thumbs. Eastern Tennessee is VERY rural. We stayed in a bungalow on the property of the rafting company we were going with. A ditzy girl that worked there told Rachel you could fit 6 people (4 in beds and 2 on air mattresses). She was kinda right. If you moved the desk in between the beds and moved the half fridge into the bathroom then you could fit everyone in there, but that also meant once you were in bed you couldn't get up. We survived our cramped quarters. We tried to make a campfire. Next time we are bringing some boy scouts. The boys with us didn't know how to make fire. We managed to burn paper and leaves well enough and long enough to make one smore for each person. Saturday morning we got up bright and early to get ready for rafting which we had to do since six people were sharing one bathroom. I french braided my hair into two braids. I can't remember the last time I did that. The braids were the easiest thing to do with my hair since we had to wear helmets. When we got signed in and filled out the form saying we wouldn't sue in the event of bodily harm or death we stood around waiting for the trip to really begin. We had decided we wanted a male river guide and we kinda hoped for some hippie type guide. We were all excited when they called our group and told us our river guide was Brad. Brad had long curly hair that should have belonged in an 80's rock band. I am pretty sure he was hungover and possibly stoned. Or maybe that was his permanent disposition? The whole thing made me giggle. Also he gave all of the rafting instructions while smoking a cigarette. I don't think I would trust Brad to do anything aside from rafting. I will say that he seemed content with his river hippie lifestyle. He told us a joke. What's the difference between a river guide and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four. He lives in a camper and when it is not rafting season he travels out west to snowboard. Correction: I would probably trust him to teach me how to snowboard. On the bus ride up to the river I stared out the window wondering what on earth I was thinking when I decided to go white water rafting. I was really scared and nervous. On Friday before I left I wrote on facebook that I was going rafting and that prayers were encouraged and appreciated. So I began to pray. I prayed for courage. I prayed I would calm down. I prayed for a safe rafting trip. I prayed I would not get tossed out of the raft. Then I remembered that Jesus is always with us. Then I got the mental image of Jesus wearing a helmet and life jacket while holding an oar and sitting in the raft. And that made me giggle. And I felt peace about rafting which was good since we had just began to paddle out into the river. I had lots of fun rafting and hopefully I will be able to go rafting again. After rafting and getting showered we ate at this super cute and super good deli called The Ocoee Dam Deli and Diner. The entrees were named after different dams across the country. We stopped at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro. I have heard of people who got all kinds of cool stuff there, and some of my friends got cool stuff. However, I wasn't all that impressed. Overall I had an amazing weekend. The only downside was our continued bad luck with finding sno biz. The search for sno biz continues...