2 Angels: One Named Donald

Alex told me, “If we want to do this rock climb Saturday, we absolutely must leave at 8 in the morning. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck climbing in the dark.'"

I just grunted and said, "Yeah, sure."

Then Saturday came, and things went wrong immediately. Scarlet thought she had broken her finger at soccer goalie practice. So, instead of leaving at 8 AM, we didn't start our trip until 10 AM.

I didn't realize that getting to the climb meant a three-mile bike ride up and down a lot of big hills. I was already tired and the rock climb hadn’t even started.

Finally, we got to the canyon. First, we had to go down a 200-foot rope repel to the bottom.

When we looked at the wall we had to climb, it was 3 in the afternoon. We only had about two hours of sunlight left. We were completely alone, far away from anyone.

The climb itself was supposed to be easy, maybe a 5.5, but it looked impossible. It was a blank wall (like a 5.14) with nowhere to put your hands or feet. I was getting really nervous.

We started climbing, and it was a struggle right away. Scarlet started to cry, saying, "I can't do it!" I felt like crying too.

Just then, a man appeared out of nowhere. I had thought we were totally alone.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked. "I never see anyone here. Maybe the last time was two years ago. Do you have headlights? It's going to get dark soon, and the park is about to close, so your car might get towed!"

I told him I didn’t think we had lights.

The man, who said his name was Donald, was like an angel. He saw us struggling and immediately started helping us. He was a great climber and with my husband, managed to pull Bryson, Scarlet, and me up the huge wall.

We reached the top just as the sun was setting. It was almost completely dark. Now we had to bike the three miles back to the car.

As we rode out in the dark, we got to the exit gate. We expected it to be locked, leaving us stranded.

But another surprise! A park ranger was there. He was supposed to have locked the gate hours ago, but he kept it open for us.

Two amazing things happened to save us: a man named Donald helped us up the wall, and a park ranger waited to keep the gate open.

Luck? No I don’t think so. Thank you Jesus.