The Chunky River Raft Race 2018 is coming up very soon — the first weekend in June. May is still a whirlwind. Mother’s Day, graduations, my son’s wedding, birthdays, etc. I can’t imagine June will slow down any.
I remember floating a river
in Tennessee when my oldest son was a toddler. Tobie rode in his mother’s lap in her inner tube as a river full of people moved steadily along with the current. I floated in a tube nearby.
Then the current quickened and we were moving through large rocks, and my wife’s tube caught on one of them, flipping it and plunging her face first into the river with Tobie beneath her. I propelled myself out of my inner tube and rushed to get to them.
Did I mention I can’t really swim? Good thing the river was only a few feet deep at that point. A bundle that was half my son and half orange life jacket popped through the surface and I grabbed him. He was fine, but terrified.
Two men who were nearer to my wife had grabbed her and were helping her sit on a boulder. She’d hit her head but was OK. She loved the river and wanted to finish the route. Tobie did not.
Someone else towed my tube and I carried a shaking child the mile or so back to our cabin.
When my younger son was 10 and his sister Britain was 5 years old, Devon took her into the woods behind our house to see the Amite River. It was really just a wide creek at the spot he liked to visit, and his sister really wanted to go. So they went.
They just didn’t tell anybody else they were going somewhere.
An hour or so later, as our neighbors and the chief of the volunteer fire department helped us search, here came the little happy duo marching back to the house — dirty, sweaty, damp and thoroughly confused as to why everyone was looking for them. When Devon leaned on his walking stick and sincerely asked me, “Didn’t you know I’d be at the creek?” I couldn’t help but think of Jesus as a child saying to Joseph, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?”
Some things just draw us, and are part of what we’re all about. For some it’s the outdoors, or video games or fill in the blank. I like that the Chunky River Raft Race benefits Alzheimer’s Mississippi. It’s a worthy cause, and it certainly shows where the organizers’ hearts are.
Follow your heart, especially when it leads you to help others.
Brett Campbell can be reached at brettcampbell@bellsouth.net or 601-934-0901.
