15 Day Adventure in the Wilderness

     Life has been a series of adventures that God has taken me on and this is no exception. I tend to embrace the challenges that God throws at me and gave me the reputation, in my family, of diving into the water not really worrying about how it feels until I’m already in. So, I was pretty excited to be going on wilderness and gaining another “adventure experience” to add to the already colorful life story of Larissa Dickson.  As I was on the trip I realized that wilderness is more than just an “adventure experience;” it’s a time that God used in my life for opening my eyes up to my own struggles as well as helping me to see the bigger picture. His picture.

    One of those eye opening experiences happened on the 4^th day of the hike. I was leader for the day along with Madison one of the students. I had gotten up that morning thinking “I am going to do leadership well today” and feeling very confident in my abilities to lead and lead well. Unfortunately my mindset was very prideful that morning and God needed me to take a slice of humble pie.

      I had started boiling water for the morning. One of the pots was pretty hot, but not quite boiling, when it decided to fall and spill water right on top of my, then tennis shoe covered, foot. I quickly took off my uncomfortable footwear and, at Caryn’s direction, got a piggy back ride on Megan’s back from our campsite to the lake where I proceeded to soak it.

    As I was soaking my foot the first thing that I thought is “how am I going to lead now?” the second thought was “I, what is this I? Without God how would I even be here?” As I was thinking this I looked up and saw the sun sparkling off of the beautiful grey-fading-into-tan mountains and a fish jumping out of the cool blue water with huge evergreen trees all around. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful place to be in that moment. God took the time to meet me there and show me, gently, that I could not do this on my own, and I didn’t have to.

   People from my team came around me and showed me how valued I was as a person and instead of feeling guilty for others “taking my job” as I often have felt in the past I felt freedom in leading differently than I had originally envisioned. I led through direction that morning which meant that I needed to practice communicating what needed to be done. This is not necessarily a strong point and it's something that I need to work on. This was a goal that I had written in my journal the night before.

     Sour Patch Kid and Conradical made breakfast while I soaked my foot and put on my hiking boots. Madison communicated to the team where we would be hiking that day and how we had decided to organize the morning.  It was cool to see her step up and be a leader with me and see her vision for the team come alive. Co-leaders are awesome! I could not have chosen a better person to co-lead with me that day than her.



     After we broke camp we started hiking one direction in search of a trail that we had been on the day before. Being new at this map/compass thing we made several stops to re-orient and make sure we were going the right direction. We reached a tricky part and were deciding on whether we should go back to a different trail that Madison had seen earlier or keep going when Caryn asked us if there was a different way of getting to Glacier Lake than what we had already thought of. It was then that Madison realized that if we headed towards the highest peak of the Black Buttes we would be able to find the lake more easily than any of our other proposed plans. We set our compasses and took off. Well, I took off. I realized that I, even with a heavy backpack on, walk a little on the fast side.

     We reached Glacier Lake and were greeted by Suzanne and Jonathan, people that only Madison and I knew we would be meeting up with that day. It was cool to see the group’s excitement and love as they surrounded these two familiar faces.



     After the momentous meeting, figuring out camp logistics, and roughly setting up camp we gathered back to get a surprise objective for the day. We were told that we would be hiking the Black Buttes. This was probably the most unexpectedly hard things of this trip for me. I definitely did not expect myself to find heights this frightening and stressful. I have gone on roller-coasters, done rock climbing, been on zip-lines, been 20 feet up suspended on a rope in the redwoods, and did ropes-course. This was none of those. This was climbing up rock with no rope or safety net to catch you if you fell. I was basically trusting that the rock was going to hold me and if it didn’t I was going to fall and at worst get really badly injured for doing this and at best die and meet my maker.  So, I found out that ropes are my security blanket when doing these types of things.

    I made it to the top thanks to prayer (lots of prayer) and the encouragement of my teammates. After we got to the top and felt like we were on top of the world for a bit we had to get back down which is just as hard as going up but at least the goal is to get back onto flat ground and not feel like you have to be a mountain goat for the rest of your life. (Definitely not my thing). 



     At the end of this long and learning filled day we got to watch the sunset and breathe. As we were sitting next to the mountain I got to meditate on Colossians 1:11-12 which ended up being my wilderness verses.  (May you be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might with all patience and endurance with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance with the saints in light.) These verses reminded me that it was not my own strength that got me up a physical mountain and it’s not my own strength that gets me up the emotional and spiritual mountains. It is God’s strength that He has poured out onto me and that I can be thankful and joyful for the work that has been and is being done in and through me. 



     An allegory that has stuck with me from the trip came from rock–climbing day. My goal for the day was to be an encouragement for my teammates. This was harder to do than I expected because there were those who just did not respond or respond positively to the encouragement that I had to give. Later I found out that it really meant a lot for me to be there saying what I said.

     Encouragement is like a seed that is planted in the ground. We can’t expect the seed to grow right away but the seed is there and as the person thinks about what was said it sinks deeper and grows until you see a plant start to form. That plant will continue to grow and get stronger in that person’s life as long as they continue to process the encouragement that was given. It’s not a perfect allegory and in some areas of our lives the seeds of encouragement sprout up right away, but I believe that God uses the harder moments, the times when our soil is harder, to speak more clearly to us and to grow us more in the long run.