True stories about real people
She grasps the side of the rough, grey rock that juts out of
the cliff towering above her. Glancing back at her hiking
partner, she can see that her friend regrets following her
down this trail.
But they are almost at the top now. When they scramble over
the last steep patch of rocks, they see that the top of the
mountain is deserted. Hills, the color of deep azure, stretch
into a sea of greenery all around them. She is intoxicated
with the accomplishment of having climbed so high. Her friend
is not as enthralled. She shifts nervously on her feet,
anxious about climbing down.
Suddenly, they hear a soft groan, and she spots a person
lying about fifteen feet away from them. As they come closer,
they see that an elderly man is bleeding profusely from his
forehead. His white beard is streaked with blood.
"I fell and hit my head on a rock," he mumbles in a weak
voice. For a moment they stand beside him, paralyzed with the
panic of helplessness. Then she remembers the cell phone in
her knapsack.
"You think it will work all the way up here?" she asks her
friend.
"It's worth a try," she answers, as she looks up the
emergency number on the hiking map pamphlet. Thousands of
feet in the air, the cell phone works. The dispatcher tells
them that he's sending a helicopter, and that they should try
to control the bleeding. She finds an extra shirt in her
knapsack, and her friend begins ripping it into make-shift
bandages. They work together with trembling hands, wondering
how this flimsy shirt is going to stop the stream of blood
flowing from the man's head.
Just then a heavy-set woman lumbers up the side of the
mountain and shading her eyes from the afternoon sun, she
shouts above the wind.
"You guys okay over there?"
"This man is badly hurt," she cries back. The woman rushes
over and grabs the shirt. She begins expertly tearing
bandages and affixing them onto the man's head.
"I'm an emergency nurse," she explains as she checks his
vital signs. And then they hear another voice behind them,
deep and concerned.
"What happened?" A tall man in hiking gear is making his way
toward them. After examining the injured man's head, he
explains that he is a neurosurgeon. He helps the nurse
stabilize the bleeding.
Soon the helicopter roars above them, and they crouch next to
the rocks as it lands. As the emergency workers bring the
injured man into the helicopter, the sun begins to set. All
around them the hills are aflame with the majesty of Hashem.
And she begins to count the ways that Hashem took care of
that injured hiker. The cell phone. The extra shirt in her
knapsack. The emergency nurse. The neurosurgeon. The rescue
helicopter. All on a deserted mountain top. And then she
begins to count the ways that Hashem takes care of her. And
she finds that there are so many ways, day after day, that
she can't begin to count them.
As she watches the helicopter disappear into the darkening
sky, she bows her head in awe. Look how Hashem orchestrates
our lives. How He sends messengers to heal our wounds. How He
guides us up mountains and carries us down.
There, on that empty mountain top with her head cradled in
her arms, she receives the rarest of gifts. Hashem makes her
aware that He takes care of her. And since that day, there is
a person hidden inside of her that is still kneeling in the
rocks with her head in her arms, thanking Hashem for every
minute of her day.
