My nephew clung to me with all his strength. I could feel this little hands around my shoulders, holding on for dear life. I had taken four of my seven nephews on an adventure down a little channel that connects two lakes in a beautiful state park. They went with life jackets and tubes, but as I expected, I ended up carrying the tubes most of the way. I left them at the channel’s bank just before we got to the most adventurous part – the part where the boys really did need their life jackets to float down.
The float down was no problem. It was the return upstream that found one of my nephews clinging to me, exclaiming, “I don’t like strong currents! This is too adventurous for me!”
I was glad to help him, of course. But I had to laugh to myself as I noticed how desperately he was hanging on to me. Didn’t he feel the strength of my arms, holding tightly on to him? Did he somehow think that I would possibly let him go? I’m sure if I would have asked him, he would have said he trusted me – but his tense shivering communicated all the contrary.