One of the most scary adventure experiences of my life happened in Maine while visiting Acadia National Park. Went spent the whole day exploring and hiking and taking photos. What a breathtaking state, and still one of my favorite stateside vacations.

This hiking park is not well marked. You have to follow blue tape like dashes on the ground to know that you are on the correct path. It is especially hard to tell if you are still on the path when you get to the edges of the granite cliffs.  Needless to say, we picked our hikes carefully. We decided to go to the Bubble Rock. You hike up 600 feet and there is this giant boulder positioned at the very edge of this cliff. It looks as if you could touch the giant boulder and make it tumble down. I have to admit sliding on the smooth granite to get down to the boulder scared me — so I was the photographer as hubby took his rock shot. I let fear rob me of that photo op.  

We decided to hike around the top there a little more… again following the poorly marked blue dashes on the ground. We got to another edge. There were blue dashes so I knew we were on the right path…. but then we got to about a 4 foot drop down…. and we are literally at the edge of this cliff. I could not see what was around the corner of this rock face and I did not want to drop down and get stuck. Hubby did, and investigated and said it was fine….so I followed. This was a rock face path was narrow, and 600 feet in the air with nothing to stop you from tumbling down down down. We got to the other side and I was so grateful to have survived. Unfortunately, hubby had not explored the path completely. At the other side we were met with no clear path to get back up!!!! It was the granite sheaths and no pathway, (Remember earlier, when I didn’t take a photo because of the sliding smooth granite? That was child’s play considering where I was now!) 

We had no choice but to keep moving. We had to put our hand in small cracks in order to climb upward to where we knew the top was…. the path was completely gone. This was even worse than going around the rock face… but turning back was not an option (Remember 4 foot drop down?) We just get moving upward. Slowly but surely we made it.   

A really positive thing came out of that harrowing experience. After we made it back on solid ground and didn’t die! I told hubby I wanted to go back to the Bubble rock and take that photo. I had just done something 1000 times scarier and didn’t want to regret letting fear keep me from that photo! 

Mamas, what’s your rock face moment? What’s your: ‘Do I really want to follow these faint blue dashes, when I don’t know where they lead?’, moment?  Are you ready to surrender that to God, and go back to Bubble Rock and take that photo? 

I have had several surrender moments in my life. Accepting God’s no to babies was my hardest. I think the main reason I was able to accept God’s no was that I knew we had done everything physically possible. There wasn’t anything left to try, we had exhausted all our options.  Mamas, there are times you face obstacles and God wants you to plow through, and other times a closed door means a closed door. It is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that tells you which. I knew my closed door meant to accept His no, and stop, and rest. My answer was clear, and I pray yours will be also.