Fifteen years ago, our car was loaded with borrowed backpacks overfilled with food, sleeping bags and clothing. We had trundled up a 15-mile mountain road to a parking lot deep in the Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, parked our car, and ready to begin the real adventure.
Friends had invited us to hike five-miles into the backcountry to stay in a lodge that slept twenty people. I'd been told it had electricity, hot/cold running water, a bunk house and a place to eat. I'd never done anything remotely like this before.
We'd taken our kids river rafting and to the Dominican Republic on a trip to fix orphanages. I was an unsupportive member of this current adventure and had communicated that in the chaos of packing for a trip I couldn't envision.
Driving up the mountains to the parking lot, the light drizzle turned into a torrential downpour. With wind.
We all had brought rain gear which was put to good use just shuttling between the day shelter and our car as we finalized our gear before hitting the trail.
A slog. If you look in the dictionary, this trip will be the definition. Climbing 2000 feet in five miles in pouring rain with middle school-age children, that's a slog. Horizontal winds as we traversed the trail above the lake. Less so in the trees, but still, the rain.
Finally, roughly a half-mile from the cabin, two figures emerged from the mist. Our friends who'd organized the trip. They came out to check on us. They looked divine, like elven gods emerging from their mystical kingdoms to help the lost travelers.
We were ushered back to the cabin, and into the warm glow that must have a special word in other, richer languages. We were exhausted, but we'd made it. Tired, but energized. On the verge of crying, but laughing.
All that.
This past hike marked our fifteenth year. Fifteen years of grace; that's how it feels to me.
I didn't welcome this into my life. I didn't earn it. It was completely a gift of an opportunity, one I didn't seek or deserve.
I can only say that I fairly quickly saw the treasure we'd stumbled onto and have spent hundreds of hours now coordinating, organizing and planning each trip to make sure it keeps happening.
When I think of all the graces extended to me, one like this, it makes me want to soften to others and be more thankful. I don't think I realize how much of a scarcity mentality I possess. I grew up in a family of hoarders. Maybe that seeps into your bones in more ways than you realize.
I think I've curbed the worst of those excesses, but maybe not in my spirit.
I come from families that went through the Depression. They had known what it felt like to have something and then nothing.
So, just say no to scarcity, be thankful and extend that grace and blessing to others.
Another year, under our belts.