God, Me and the Bear

I was hiking the other day down a mountain and heard some loud leaves rustling to my right. By the weight of what was walking on the leaves, I knew what it was. I looked over out of the corner of my eye to see a giant black bear approximately 50 feet away. He saw me about the time that I saw him. I'll never forget that face -- the look in his deep black eyes. I heard another bear behind him. Only once before have I seen a bear and that was driving down the interstate. I proceeded to freak out. I had walked one mile down the two mile trail and hadn't seen anyone in the past hour. I was alone, in the middle of nowhere and very, very vulnerable. I walked past the bear, staying on the trail and just kept walking. Never run, bears will chase you out of curiosity if nothing else. I didn't turn around because I knew I could do nothing. If the bear attacked me, I would rather not know in advance. I began praying. I have rarely prayed so intensely in my life before. Questions of destiny and fate popped into my head. I even asked myself "is God real?".

The answer was unequivocally, yes. I prayed God protect me, keep me safe, keep me safe. I remembered when God shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was with them. I remembered the strong feeling that God has plans for my life -- a purpose that I have yet to complete. The scariest part was the first time I turned around a few hundred feet down the trail. I didn't know if he was 10 feet behind me or 100 feet. But thankfully, he didn't follow me... that I knew of. I kept praying. Through this praying, I began to feel a sense of peace. Not full-on, I'm going to waltz out of here, peace, but more of a I'm not going to die today peace. I tried to tell myself that these bears see hikers all the time and wouldn't attack, but that didn't give me peace. Only God's grace gave me peace.

I kept walking... the longest walk of my life. A half-mile down the road I look down and see fresh bear tracks in the mud. I'm not out of here yet! I started a new cycle of praying my heart out. I kept walking and heard someone talking far behind me. It was a couple who was walking a ways behind me the entire time, but I didn't realize it. They saw the bear too and said it was easily 7' tall. They didn't know if anything happened to me, hiking by myself (like an idiot) since they didn't hear me for a while. Walking the last little bit of the trail with them put my heart at ease. At least I wasn't alone anymore. Before I knew it we were at the end of the trail and I was still alive.

Below is a blurry picture I snapped when I walked by the bear. You can see him in the bottom left. All I could think of was, if I live or die today, this is going to be an important picture.

God delivered me, plain and simple. Sure, I wouldn't want to experience that again, but seeing God come through for me and protecting me from a bear that was easily 3-5 times my size and weight, I feel like I can trust Him much more. I have no doubt He heard my prayers that day and kept that bear away from me.

Andrew