Saturday, October 29, 2011

My Scariest Mom Moment

We hike to the tip of a small mountain this summer, take a picture of Hayden with his Flat Stanley and all is well. Fast forward 30 minutes and it's the worst moment in my life as a mother. We went with our friends, Amy and her 3 boys. The trail is marked well, we have done it once before and they have done it numerous times. The boys know the rules, when you get to the bottom you wait. Hayden, Coy, and Wyatt speed down the mountain laughing all the way, while Amy, Me and the other 3 boys take our time.
I am 6 months pregnant at this time so I had to move a little slower, easy hike or not. One of Amy's boys is about 20 feet ahead of us at the bottom and comes back up to inform us Hayden, Coy, and Wyatt are not there waiting. I'm not worried, that is so Coy to hide behind a tree and scare us, no big deal they'll come out laughing when Amy and I get there.
No such luck. We get to the bottom and for real they are not there. That icky feeling starts to brew, we immediately say a prayer. "What do you feel?" Says Amy. I giver her a puzzled look and say "I feel like I need to go out to the road." Amy starts back up the mountain, her husband shows up the scour the other trail, he calls the police, and I stay at the bottom periodically checking the road. All of us hollering thinking the absolute worst. The trail is impossible to lose, it's so clear, someone took them. 20 minutes go by, 30, I have everything I can do to keep my cool. Irrational thinking is not going to help. I'm hollering their names. Amy and her husband are up on the mountain I'm sure doing the same.
All of the sudden I hear Hayden's voice, sure enough I run out to the road and they are all three coming towards me. Hayden's crying, he also kept it together until he saw me, I'm crying, I'm texting "I have them, I have them."
They are all safe then I crumble to ground and cry historically for about 5 minutes. The police show up, Amy and Jason come back down. Hayden proceeds to tell me they stopped to pray three times. We were very grateful in our prayers that night. I am still so grateful to the Lord for keeping them safe and helping us find each other. I definitely took for granted that they would know to stay on the trail, a mistake I won't make again. By far the scariest moment of my life.

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