The Snake-Rock Is Calling

gerki

by gerki

Story

The sun made the high mountain peaks in St. Anthönien, Switzerland, glowed so that they accompanied us like spotlights. I was hiking with a group of young people as a leader from a youth camp, and the mountain world almost overwhelmed my senses. The second leader, “Uncle Heinz” was a mountaineer. So that day we went for a new experience; abseiling! Heinz had found an ideal place for it, the snake rock. I was getting a little queasy in my stomach as we got closer and we saw the height of the rock.

We had often looked at the rock from a distance, so it didn’t seem so scary high to me. We set out on the climb, winding our way up the trail on the back side. At the top, Heinz explained and demonstrated to us how to do it: rope around your body and thighs, use your right hand to control your speed, backwards, backwards, keep going backwards until you’re at the edge of the rock and then – you “just let yourself fall into the rope”. And off was Heinz. We looked down and he went laughing down the rock wall. Wow, pretty dangerous, I thought, and slowly walked towards the back path.

Heinz just came back up from there and called out, “Who’s first?” “Uncle Gerhard,” it sounded in the unanimous chorus of the boys and now I was getting really hot. I had thought about going down the path, but now there was no escape! I looked at the rope. It was supposed to carry three tons – I’m not that heavy, I thought. The steps were becoming shorter and shorter, in my stomach it rumbled more and more alarmingly! I saw the tree around which the rope was looped – it probably holds me also. Then I had arrived at the edge, now there was no turning back!

Loud encouragement and cheers came from the group, I looked up to heaven, entrusted my family to God and let myself fall backwards over the edge. Lo and behold, I was on the rope and it was really fun to step down the high rock like that. At the top, the crowd was cheering and I even managed to wave to them, as if that was the most natural thing in the world for me anyway. Needless to say, this elevated me to hero status with the guys! Did I go up again? No, of course not, but if I hadn’t been able to take that step, I would never have had that experience, and I would probably still be asking myself today, “How does it feel to be abseiling like that?”

This experience always reminds me so much of the journey of faith. There, you also have to go to the edge of the unknown and let yourself fall into the hands of God there in trust, simply handing your life over to HIM. If you do it, you experience Him. If you do not take this step, you will always remain questioning whether this spiritual reality really exists.

© gerki 2022-12-03

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