"You saved my life!"

I was recently at a wedding. The wedding of Jared and Tori. Over the many years that my wife and I had done ministry, the class that graduated with Tori and Jared was especially colorful and cool. Of all the personalities involved, Carl stuck out. He was a bit wild and woolly, always had a great story to tell, and had tons of heart. In high school Carl is the kind of kid that howled at the moon, so to speak. Once Christ got hold of him, he was a kid with an unusual passion for communicating the love of Christ to others. And he was active in the Bible studies that I would lead for the young men. I guess in one of these studies I must have told the story of when I almost drowned in the Big Thompson River back in 1975.

Beth Sutton and several the gals from the summer project in Estes Park, Colorado decided to go tubing in the Big Thompson. As one of the staff leaders I felt somewhat responsible for the students and when I heard that the girls were going alone I thought it prudent to go down there watch out for them. Sometimes tubing can be a bit dangerous, especially at certain parts of the river.

To make a long story short, they were fine but I wasn't. When I got there, the first time down the river and over the spillway I lost my tube and got stuck in an underwater whirlpool. I could get to the surface about once per minute. My life flashed before me- I was ready to die. And I was saying my final prayers when a local football player from that area who was well acquainted with the river came on a large inner tube and pulled me out. When I teach the Bible study to the guys, if it would fit in, I tell the story of my near drowning experience. I suppose Carl had heard that story.

Part of the story I rarely tell, for obvious reasons, is what the football player said to me after he pulled me out, "Next time, swim to the buttom, and go out along the river bed with the flow." So simple, and a bit embarrassing. But in the middle of drowning, it's hard to keep your head and come up with creative solutions to your problem.

Anyway, I must have included this simple solution the time Carl heard it.

Back to the wedding reception. Awe inspiring, beautiful, etc. While we waited for the bride and groom to appear at the reception, Carl and I were catching up on old times. He looks me straight in the eye and says, "Mr. Zeiler, you saved my life." I couldn't imagine what was going to follow. "You really did. I was kayaking about a year ago and got caught in an underwater whirlpool. It was really bad. I was in there a long time, had taken in water, and was about to give up, then I remembered your story. You told us how to get out and it came to mind."

I was telling this conversation to my son, Drew, a good friend of Carl's to see if he had heard it. He said, "No, but that is absolutely incredible." "What was?", I asked. He said, "I must have heard your 'drowning story' a hundred times but I don't remember you telling us how to get out."

I guess I told it once.

I can hardly express the joy it brings to me to consider that something I did (even if it was a mistake) or something I said (even if only once) could help someone else in such a dramatic way.

We never know how our lives might influence others. It never seems to be in the ways we expect, but it does happen. People rarely learn from others' mistakes, they usually have to go through it themselves before they learn it. Sometimes, just sometimes, we can listen and learn- and I am so very glad that Carl was listening that day in bible study- and that I told that part of the story.