Listening to God's Angel Messages Saved a Climber From Falling

Whew! Listening to God saves you from falling. Just ask Kathleen!

By Kathleen Arnold, Truckee, CA

Every climb is different. My second time ever climbing, I was in Yosemite with my climbing partner. I really wasn't very knowledgeable. I was being taken climbing rather than being the leader. We were up on Bridal Veil Falls, and we were repelling down. Something -- my spiritual consciousness -- said, "Stop and look down." My partner was above me waiting on the anchors. I listened and obeyed; I stopped and looked down. I was about two feet away from the end of the rope.

When you're repelling, you're on two ropes. The two ropes move together. They're doubled up through the anchor. But that day, the ends of the ropes were not tied together as they should have been. One of them didn't reach the ground, and that's the one I was on. The moment you put weight on something that's not equalized, you fall. Had I kept going, I would have come off the end of the rope and fallen. I said, "Thank you God for telling me that angel message."

I yelled up to my partner, and he got really freaked out. At that point, I was so grateful not to have gone off the end of the rope that I wasn't afraid. Still, there was nowhere for me to go because I was at the end of the rope. I remained calm even though my partner wasn't. I asked if he could fix the rope so that it would no longer move. He made it stationary, and I was able to go down on the line that did reach the ground.

I've always been so thankful for this experience. I learned so much. I've never been on a climb since then where that's happened. I always make sure that there are two knots tied at the end so that there's no question of that happening. I've also learned to stop and listen. When we're listening to God, and we hear a message and obey it, we're going to be protected and safe and have all those things that we need.

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