When Survival Isn’t Enough... Chapter 6

With a start, John woke up from a heavy sleep. It took him a few moments to register where he was. Then, the events of the previous day came washing over him. The bear, his fears and the exhaustion of cutting and dragging logs for his new tiny cabin.

As he stretched himself, it seemed his very bones hurt from the previous day’s efforts and both of his hands had blisters and scrapes all over them from cutting down the dead Alders, dragging them back to camp and then stacking them into a head high perimeter wall. He knew that today he was going to continue his hard labor as each log had to have a round notch cut into it and carefully stacked upon the one below it. But first, he had to have some food and so forcing himself to get up, he carefully climbed over the log wall and began to walk around the shore checking his fishing lines.

Thankfully, he had caught two nice medium sized fish and so, after re-baiting his hooks and tossing them out into the lake again, he cleaned and gutted the fish and took them back to camp. Now mindful of the danger from the local wildlife, he carefully built a new cooking site a hundred yards away from his shelter and new cabin site. When he had a roaring fire going, he tossed the entrails into their depths and then when the fire had reduced to a nice bed of coals, he laid the fish upon them and waited for them to cook thoroughly.

His meal finished, he then built up the fire again and tossed the bones and all remaining scraps from the fish into the flames to be consumed so that this time there would be no leftover smells and hopefully no more unwelcome visitors at camp. This done, he turned his attention to his hands. They were in pretty bad shape and really needed a few days to heal but he knew that the nice weather he had had for the last couple of days could turn bad quickly and he needed to get his cabin dried in as soon as possible. His leather gloves had perished in the fire and the only extra material he had was on his the shirt tail. As much as he hated to do it, he took his pocket knife and sliced two strips of material off the bottom of his wool shirt and then carefully wound a strip around each of his hands. It wouldn’t last long under heavy work but hopefully it would protect his hands enough to let them heal and by then he could have a lot of the cabin built. Eventually his hands would toughen up and he could make some gloves from animal skin as soon as he could devote some time to trapping. He had seen several Snowshoe Hare trails in the area and was fairly confident that he was experienced enough to catch a few.

Now, after numbering each log with charcoal, he unstacked the log perimeter he had built. Going to the lake, he found a number of flat rocks and using a stick to dig down into the soil, he dug a shallow hole a couple of feet deep. Then, he dry stacked the stones in the hole and continued up until it was even with the surface. He did this for each corner of his future cabin. After this was done, he dug a shallow trench between each of the four corners a foot deep and filled this with stones as well. Then, he stacked flat stones all the way around this perimeter a foot high. By now it was late in the day and he stopped to rest, boil some more water in his pot and collect some wild edible plants. Dandelions were in abundance as well as Fireweed, White Clover and Forget-Me-Nots. He was also pretty sure that he had seen the purple flower of some Eskimo Potatoes on one of his forays into the woods but he needed more time to investigate that and dig some of the roots up to roast or boil.

His wilderness salad completed and collected on a flat piece of driftwood, he sat down with a still-warm pot of water and ate, taking time to enjoy the meal, but all the time wishing for some dressing or a vinaigrette. Downing the rest of his pot of water, he collected another potful and put it on to boil.

Going over to the stacked logs and using a short length of vine, he found the round measurement of the first log and then transferred this to the log below it, marking it out with his piece of charcoal. Carefully he chopped the half-round section out and then laid the log onto his stacked stone foundation. He did this on each side and then laid the next two logs on the front and back into the notches he had made. He continued this until he had the wall halfway back up and then looking at his watch he realized it was going on midnight. He went back to his debris shelter, slid his hatchet inside and stacked some more wood on the fire. His water had now cooled down and he eagerly slaked his thirst. He unwrapped his hands and using a little bit of the purified water, gingerly washed them using a little of the ashes from his fire for soap. Then, wearily, he wiggled into his debris hut and pulling his hat over his eyes, said a short prayer and fell into a deep sleep.

Being able to sleep is one of God’s gifts to us. In Psalm 127:2 the Bible says, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep”. The best sleep you will ever have is after a long day of productive work. Pushing our boundaries until we are broken physically is never a good thing. Even during a crisis when our work is critical we need to take time to get proper rest. Jesus Himself, on the world’s greatest mission, took time to get away, to rest and sleep. It is when our bodies sleep that we recharge and heal. As one of my professors used to say, sometimes the most spiritual thing that you can do is take a nap! Are you weary? Do you need rest? Make sure that in your busy schedule you take time for this all important feature of your life. After all, it is a blessing from God for you to sleep!

Thanks for reading!

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James B