Chapter 5: “Paddles Up!” “Paddles up!” When we hear this call, we all take our paddles out of the water, raise them straight up into the sky and touch them together, echoing the call of “paddles up.” Usually, there is some hooting and hollering that goes along with it. It’s a celebration tradition among rafters, and we love doing it. We always do it at the beginning of the day on the water, and then before a particularly hard rapid, and then always after we conquer a difficult section of whitewater. It’s a fun tradition and one of the best parts of any trip on a river. I wanted to end with this illustration because I think it is vitally important as we think back on all of the lessons of this book. As we travel down the river of life, we know we will encounter times of great difficulty. Sometimes it may feel like we might not make it out alive. There may be some sections of life that roar with such overwhelming volume that we just want to stop the raft and get out. We might even wonder why we ever thought this trip was a good idea, but because of the strength we have in Christ, and because of the community of believers we have around us, these challenges can be navigated and celebrated. When we are rafting, and we see a particularly hard section coming up, like “The Ledges,” on the Schroon River, which is one of our favorite hits, we almost always put our “paddles up” before we hit it. We know that once we hit that rapid, there is a real danger and most of us have experienced the fear that comes with being thrown out of the raft on that rapid. But we put our ‘paddles up’ to calm our nerves and to focus our minds. It reminds us that we are a team and that we can get through this if we all work together. Then after we make it through the rapid, we always celebrate with our “paddles up.” We look back at the
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