This week I took my kids to Great Falls National Park outside Washington, DC. It’s a beautiful park along the Potomac River, with some impressive falls, cliffs and trails as well as some nature, which is hard to find in Washington. We even saw 4 deer, a snake, several skinks, and a hawk. My kids were thrilled.
At one point, we were high up on the rocks overlooking the river at one of its deeper points. As I looked down into the river at some smaller rocks sticking up, I noticed something caught on them that looked strange. It looked like a blue shirt with 2 flesh-colored limbs that would roll in the foaming waters and rise up to the surface every 20 seconds or so. I pointed it out to others in our group. We decided that the way it was flopping, it had to be the remains of a doll or something like that. Still, it was a bit unnerving.
As we were leaving, we mentioned it to the ranger, who looked very serious and immediately called 9-11. I quickly walked him back up the trail to the spot. When he looked at the rocks through his binoculars, he thought it was a dead body. The next 20 minutes are a blur to me. Two park police cars came roaring into the park with their sirens blaring, towing Zodiacs behind them. Within minutes, a river rescue crew was at the spot while TV helicopters circled loudly overhead. In the end, they pulled out some cloth that was blue and flesh-colored. That was it. Just some cloth. After being at the park for 6 hours, my children and I drove home, still shaky from the experience.
As I tried to relay to my husband just how upsetting and traumatic the whole thing was, I found myself unable to shake the idea that someone had drowned in the river. It seemed so real that I was actually burdened by a heavy sadness all night. But even though I could admit that it was just a cloth, my mind kept believing that we had really seen a person.
It reminded me of how powerful our minds can be. I run away with ideas all the time. Sometimes I’ll end up in tears imagining what it would be like to lose my husband or my kids. I can get so worked up it’s hard to believe that they’re still alive. It’s easy to do on the job too – suddenly a minor problem is played out in our heads until we cannot sleep anymore. We must take captive every thought and bring it under the Lordship of Christ. He can keep our perspective true and help keep our minds on a leash.
In Him,
Lucy
Comments