Northern Tier Adventure part II: Seattle to St. Paul: Day 4: Rest Day at Colonial Creek Campground

Sat., May 27, 2017
Stats: Today - 0 miles; 165 miles to date
Elevation climbed: 0 by bike; by foot 2674
Temp. Low: upper 40's, High: mid 70's
tailwind, sunny

Today I (Mary) awoke in the early morning and in my half-sleep state, had three words drop into my mind: mother, cancer, and centurion. Then my mind proceeded to construct a powerful dream in which I met a man at a store and told him that God was going to heal his mother of cancer. All that day in every town we went through, I looked for the shop the man might be in but didn't see it. I had started the day exhausted from my lack of sleep because of a nagging headache, so by the time we ended our ride on the side of the mountain we would be climbing on Sunday, I was thoroughly exhausted. I was happy that we'd be spending our free day at Colonial Creek Campground the next day. We rolled in to this North Cascades National Park campground and saw the word, "FULL" posted at the entrance. There was no phone reception in the whole park and no wifi, so we had no options to find anything else. Since we had just entered the Diablo Lake valley, we had no energy to climb out to look for anything else. We decided to look for the camp hosts and ask if they had a hike/biker area or could find something for us. As we walked down the camp road, we met a friendly woman who said she didn't think there were any hosts. We told her our story and went back to the entrance and Ron simply prayed, "God, would you find us a place to sleep here?"

As soon as Ron prayed, the woman we had met, Carter, came running over to us saying, "My parents said you can set up your tent on the camping pad behind their RV." Excitedly, I grabbed my bike and the pedal banged into my ankle, causing a big welt. We met Cathy, the mom, who said to let her know if we needed anything. We were so grateful, especially since they wouldn't take any money for the cozy spot (It turns out that, with a senior discount, they only paid $8 per night - half price). We set up and I gratefully asked the Lord for a way to give back to them.

The welt on my ankle was getting bigger, so I went over to Cathy and asked if I could get a bag of ice to bring the swelling down. She invited me into her spacious RV and immediately shared with me that she was suffering from lymphatic cancer, which was causing terrible swelling and pain in her legs. I told her that I had been asking God for a way to give back to them, and this is what He provided.

I spoke to her about Jesus and how he intended for all of his followers to do the things that He did, to listen to God and do what He told them to do, including healing the sick. She agreed with me. I gave her examples from my life of how God had healed me and used me to heal others. I was just about to speak healing over her when her 5-year-old granddaughter knocked and came in. After mentioning praying for her grandma, Cathy quickly whispered, "They (the grandchildren) don't know anything about it." That meant I wasn't able to pray aloud for her, so I gave her a goodbye hug and whispered, "Be healed in Jesus' name."

I wasn't able to visit with her or pray with her during our next free day and left wishing I had somehow found a way.

As we were biking on Sunday after our rest day on Saturday, the Lord reminded me of the words He had given me that morning: mother - Carter, the first person we met - her mother; cancer - had cancer; centurion - just like Jesus' interaction with the centurion in Matthew 8, when Jesus healed the centurion's servant at a distance, I had confidence that God is healing her completely, even though my time with her was cut short. God is amazing!