26 February 2007

Psalm 17:5-6

“My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not slipped. I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.”

And Then My Feet Slipped

The day was February 17, 2007. I will remember that day till I’m put in the grave. It was about 10 o’clock A.M., and my friend and I (we’re in middle school together) went to a small park (we call it Spencerberg), on the water, to see if the water was frozen. When we got there, the water was frozen indeed, so my friend decided to walk onto the slippery ice. I warned him to come back, but if he decides to do something, nothing can stop him. Off the coast of Spencerberg is a fairly large island (as you might have guessed, we call it Spencer Island). He figured it would be okay to walk to the island, so he did. I needed to make sure he would be okay and it was only about 8 feet from the shore, so I took a stick to check for weak spots, and then walked across.

I tried to convince him to come back with me to the shore, but he decided to walk another 50 feet or so to another island. I couldn’t believe he was stupid enough to walk all the way over there. The ice was very thin there, and I was worried he would fall through. After a few minutes, he got to the island. I had no idea what to do. So I prayed to God to help me. I asked Him what to do, and He told me to go help my friend, so I grabbed my stick and started walking. I was very frightened and sang “Amazing Grace” the whole way.

After trying to convince him to go back to shore, he finally decided he’d had his fun and walked back with me. When we were about 15 feet from Spencer Island, the ice cracked and we fell through. I immediately thought of the scene in Titanic where Jack and Rose clung to a piece of metal in the freezing ocean. I never realized how cold it must have been until now. After 30 seconds, my body went completely numb, and I had never been so cold in my life. I used my arm as a club to break through the ice to get to the shore. Once we got to shore, we sat in the sun to try and warm ourselves. The good news is about half way home, I could feel my arms again, but I shivered for another hour or so.

I was lucky to make it away with only a few scratches, and to have only a few possessions of mine ruined (curiously enough he didn’t have anything of his ruined by the ice.) Another odd part of this tale is that my friend says it’s completely my fault. Once he said this, I wondered whether I should have just walked back by myself and let him freeze. I realize that staying with him was the right thing, even though I seemingly got no benefit from it. I began to see that if I can change one person with this story, then it is a great benefit. I like to believe that God can turn horrible things into good, that you can trust Him to do anything, and that you should always try to do the right thing no matter how hard it seems.

Spence Blazak

Joyjoywrld57@msn.com