“Between a Rock and an Hard Place”
From the desk of Pastor Blankenship
TEXT: Mr 9:43
43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: {offend...: or, cause thee to offend}
44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: {offend...: or, cause thee to offend}
46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: {offend...: or, cause thee to offend}
"IT’S 3:05 ON SUNDAY. This marks my 24-hour mark of being stuck in Blue John Canyon. My name is Aron Ralston. My parents are Donna and Larry Ralston, of Englewood, Colorado. Whoever finds this, please make an attempt to get this to them. Be sure of it. I would appreciate it."
It’s April 27, 2003, and for the first time since my arm was pinned against the wall of this Utah canyon, I am using my digital camcorder to videotape myself. I take long blinks and rarely look at the camera’s screen. What makes me avert my glance is the haggard expression in my eyes. They are wide-open, huge bowls; loose rolls of flesh sag and tug at my lower eyelids.
Picking up the camera, I point it first at my forearm and wrist, where it disappears in the horrifyingly skinny gap between a large boulder and the canyon wall. Then I pan the camcorder up over the pinch point to my grayish-blue hand.
"What you’re looking at there is my arm, going into the rock ... and there it is—stuck. It’s been without circulation for 24 hours. It’s pretty well gone."
Shaking my head in defeat, I yawn, battling fatigue.
I outline my failed attempts at self-rescue, and continue. "The other thing that could happen is someone comes. This being a continuation of a canyon that’s not all that popular, and the continuation being less so, I think that’s very unlikely before I retire from dehydration and hypothermia. Judging by my degradation in the last 24 hours, I’ll be surprised if I make it to Tuesday."
I know with a sense of finality that I’m saying goodbye to my family—my parents and my 22-year-old sister, Sonja—and that regardless of how much I suffer in this spot, they will feel more agony than me.
"I’m sorry."
With tears brimming, I stop filming and rub the backs of my knuckles across my eyes. I start up once more.
"You guys make me proud. I go out looking for adventure and risk, so I can feel alive. But I go out by myself, and I don’t tell someone where I’m going—that’s just dumb. If someone knew, if I’d been with someone else, there would probably already be help on the way. Dumb, dumb, dumb."
Stress turns into pessimism. Without enough water to wait for rescue, without a pick to crack the boulder, without a rigging system to lift it, I have one course of action. I speak slowly out loud:
"You’re gonna have to cut your arm off."
Hearing the words makes my instincts and emotions revolt. My vocal cords tense and my voice changes octaves:
"But I don’t wanna cut my arm off!"
"Aron, you’re gonna have to cut your arm off."
I realize I’m arguing with myself, and yield to a halfhearted chuckle. This is crazy. But I know that I could never saw through my arm bones with either of the blades of my multi-tool, so I decide to keep picking away at the boulder. Tick, tick, tick ... tick ... tick, tick. The sound of my knife tapping is pathetically minute.
DAY FIVE: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30,
9 A.M.
I update my hour tallies in my head: 96 hours of sleep deprivation, 90 hours that I’ve been trapped, 29 hours that I’ve been sipping my urine, and 25 hours with no fresh water. The exercise evokes no emotion, only matter-of-fact acknowledgment.
DAY SIX: THURSDAY, MAY 1, 9:30 A.M.
I lash out in fury, trying to yank my arm straight out from under the sandstone handcuff, never wanting more than I do right now to simply rid myself of any connection to this rotting appendage.
I don’t want it.
It’s not a part of me.
It’s garbage.
Throw it away, Aron. Be rid of it.
I thrash myself forward and back, side to side, up and down, down and up. I scream out in pure hate, shrieking as I batter my body against the canyon walls, losing every bit of composure that I’ve struggled so intensely to maintain. And then I feel my arm bend unnaturally in the un-budging grip of the chock stone. An epiphany strikes me with the magnificent glory of a holy intervention and instantly brings my seizure to a halt:
If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones.
Like bending a two-by-four held in a table vise, I can just bow my entire arm until it snaps in two!
Some things in this story I find to be linked very close to the lives of everyone here today.
Aron Ralston came to the conclusion that either I die with two arms or live with one.
Either I sit here in pain and terror, torching myself, or I do what needs to be done and gain freedom.
During the first day of his ordeal after the 800 lb boulder fell on him he begin to blame everything else but himself. He finally made the statement that boulders are supposed to roll and fall. It was his fault he was in this canyon, it was his fault he was trapped.
WE WANT TO BLAME EVERYONE ELSE FOR OUR PROBLMES BUT OURSELVES.
One man said that our biggest enemy is our self.
We worry about everything in life. We worry about who can we impress, what is my status in life, how much money can I make, who can I marry, how can I live with myself, how can I change my looks…We need to realize what Aron realized when he made this comment:
“It’s not my hand I need to worry about. The average survival time in the desert without water is between two and three days. It’s Saturday afternoon. I figure I’ve got until Monday night.”
We need to quit worrying about houses and land, cars, and companions, pleasures and disappointments, bitterness and strife, love and leisure, friends and foes, money and careers! It is the 11 o’clock hour and we only have a few minutes on God’s time clock before His return.
We are in survival mode! The Devil is out to destroy family and individuals. He is out to bust up homes and break hearts, he has come to kill and to steal your children, your spouses, your friends and family. He wants to trap you in Blue John Canyon if you please and destroy you! Will you give him permission? Will you let him kill you? It is up to you today!
OH, God, if it takes my arm, or my foot, or my eye, or my house, or my car, or my job, or my TV, or my movies, or my fornicating, or my bitterness, or my clothes, or my jewelry, or my pride, or my life, naked I came into this world naked I go out!
What is it in your life that you need to separate from? What is so heavy in your life that continues to drag you down that you need to cut off.
Does it hurt? Oh, yes! It it worth it? Oh, yes!
The Prodigal Son
Peter & Jesus walking on the water
When Aron finally tore, broke, and severed his arm off
That would be followed by a 65-foot rappel, and one more seemingly impossible task. With one arm, bleeding profusely, starved and dehydrated, close to shock, Ralston would have to hike seven miles out of the canyon in the direct midday sun. Then there would be an 800-foot vertical climb to the trailhead and his truck. The nearest hospital was a several hour drive.
As he summoned his strength for the seven-mile hike that lay ahead, rescuers were converging near his truck, at the Horseshoe Canyon trailhead.
Is it easy to get up enough nerve to finally realize that you have to sever some things in your life to come to God? No.
It takes a near death experience spiritually and even sometimes physically to come to our senses. But when we do make the move to come to God He meets us just when we feel like we can’t make it anymore.
