God Moments ...

The Miry Clay

It’s amazing how, sometimes, a moment from childhood rises so clear in your mind; and how relevant it still is.

That happened to me recently…and it packed the same punch it did so many years ago.

To help you understand what I’m talking about, I will try to describe the memory.

When I was younger I was a member of the Anglican Church. At the time (late 80’s-early 90’s) there was a ministry called GFS or Girls Friendly Society. I have no idea if it still exists today. It was a girl’s only youth group, and living in the outback there was always plenty to do. One of the more common activities was camping. There were places to camp in the bush and on people’s properties. In this instance we were camping at a property which had cows, pigs and a rather large dam.

I can’t remember the season but it was hot enough to go swimming. The owner of the property said it was permissible to do, but to take care because the cows had been down earlier and had trampled the water line.

The GFS leader (my mother) and several parents who were with us; drove us all down and my mother circled the dam to determine the safest place.

In quite, firm tones she told us we could only enter and exit the water between two points which she had marked with the cars.

For a few hours all the girls swam and mucked around in the water until my mother called a halt and said it was time to go.

My sister, further away from the group, decided it would be quicker to get out at the point closest to her and walk around, than to swim back to the point between the cars. None of us realised it until we heard her screaming for help.

She was up to her knees in grey glupy clay.

The more she struggled, the lower into the clay she sunk. She was screaming and crying for help, clawing at the mud…and sinking.

My mother had reacted faster than I thought possible. There were some rocks just above where my sister was struggling and she anchored herself against them and held out her hand.

My sister never looked up. She clawed and struggled, screamed and cried until she was up to her hips.

It was horrifyingly frightening. The other parents wouldn’t let anyone near and I could only watch.

From across the water I could hear Mum just saying my sisters’ name. Calm, low pitched, and over and over again.

Finally my sister must have heard and looked up. Stopped struggling. Reach up…and with one pull my mother had her free.

When Mum lead a service that night she made a comment about what happened that day.

Sometimes, we can be in an awful point in life. No matter what we do, we just keep struggling and sinking, screaming and crying for God to help. We use our own strength to gain freedom and things just get worse and worse.

God will never force us. He will simply be there, with his hand held towards us, waiting to help. All we have to do is stop struggling long enough to look up…and reach out.

He’ll do the rest…and we will be free.

TP Hogan