memories we will never forget, both scary ones and successful ones, but the lesson of the day goes much further than just rafting. It is a constant reminder to us in life. The point of all of this is much greater than telling a funny story or preparing you for a whitewater rafting trip; it’s about surviving the rapids of life. I want to describe an analogy to you, one that we will look at for the remainder of this book. The river is a picture of our life. It starts, when we are born, and we are on it until the day we die. There will be smooth and peaceful sections along the river of life that have breathtaking scenery and magnificent moments, but there are also going to be sections of the river of life that have rough whitewater. You know, just like the rapids I described in The Otter slide; foaming water swirling around sharp rocks jutting out of the turbulent water. These times of troubled water are inevitable, no matter the length of the calm water, or how hard you work to avoid the whitewater, there will always be times in our lives when everything is trying to overwhelm and drown us. Without a raft, these whitewater difficulties are practically un-survivable, but with a raft, they can be navigated and conquered. In this analogy the raft represents our faith: the relationship that we have with the Creator of the universe and his Son, Jesus, who sacrificed his life so that we could survive the river of life. As Christians, people who follow the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, we can have victory through the rapids of life. We do not have to settle for being tossed and flung at the mercy of the river. Before I continue with the analogy, I feel as though I should clarify a point. The Bible is very clear about the requirements for a relationship with God. It is “ by grace, through faith ,” it says in the book of Ephesians, “ not by works .” The only way we can know God personally is by
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