Jake (again)

Last night I had two different dreams about thunderstorms and tornadoes. Mike saw and took pictures of a funnel cloud yesterday and we are in the afternoon thunderstorm season, so it was on my mind and not that unusual. What is unusual is that I actually lived that nightmare this afternoon. The day started out in the typical too much going on fashion...schoolwork at 7:30, friends here at hang out at about 9:30, plans to go with more friends to our Friday hiking place after lunch, plans for still other friends who are visiting from New Mexico to come over around 3:00, then High School Musical 2 tonight. Madi opted for a trip to Target and bowed out of the adventure...in hindsight a very wise choice. It started to rain just as we were supposed to meet at the hiking place. Two car loads of us headed back to my house to check the weather radar. I had Jonathan, Jake, and my friend C's two older boys. OBM had her brother with her and her four kids. Logically it didn't really make sense to attempt this excursion, but the kids really wanted to go, OBM wanted her brother to see this really cool place, and the radar showed us we'd have a little time before the next batch of storms rolled in. So back out we headed. It started off fairly uneventfully with only rumbles of thunder in the distance and dozens of tiny frogs under our feet. As we approached our typical hangout, Jake started saying he was stuck. This type of thing is fairly common for Jake and he can be a bit of a boy who cries wolf. So between trying to stay away from spiders and mosquitoes, I didn't think much about Jake's whining. At some point the whine turned into a panicked scream and I headed back towards where the kids were. As Jake's screams of "MOMMY HELP ME!" got more and more urgent, I yelled that I was on my way, and added "some one help him". Jonathan and some of the other kids were right there with him as well as OBM's brother, so I was still under the impression this is just "normal Jake drama"...that is right up until OBM's grown man brother responds, "I can't get him out"....WHAT?! I somehow flew down the cliff into the ravine and back up the other side in a matter of seconds. Now Jake is really screaming and Jonathan is yelling "we can't get him, CALL THE POLICE". Jake was buried up to his waist in wet sand. Adrenalin Mommy to the rescue! Somehow I was able to dig around his leg and pull him out--minus one shoe. I felt like those stories that you hear about moms lifting cars off of their kids. With my heart pumping out of my chest, I carried Jake to safety. Well I headed that way anyway, but seconds after I pulled him out...here came the torrential rains! And yes, we were about a 15 minute walk, UPHILL, to the cars! The term drowned rats doesn't even do justice to the scene.

Apparently, what Jake found was a sand boil where a spring bubbles up from the ground. It loosens up the earth and swallows you in. In about 10 minutes he was up to his waist. What could've happened in another 10 minutes? Jake prayed the whole walk back to the car. He was very frightened, and felt as if God wasn't answering him because the rain was coming down harder and harder. The other boys described it by saying the rain was like bullets. It actually felt like hail pelting us. Once Jake was home and safe and dry, I helped him see how God really did protect him. It didn't start raining until he was out of the "quicksand", and even with the wind driven rain, we didn't see any lightning until we were all back at the cars. It is a day Jake will remember his whole life, but we made it back home shoeless, though really no worse for the wear. We visited with our friends from New Mexico, and got ready for tonight's show. Watching Jake up on stage singing and dancing to High School Musical 2, no one would ever know what he experienced today (well unless they noticed he was dancing in old sneakers that were two sizes too small for him). It all depend on how you look at things, it could be considered a tragedy, but I prefer to think of it as a miracle. I wonder what I'll dream tonight?