Article December 29, 2014 Issue

It’s not ‘a jungle out there’

Thomas “Tim” Mitchinson

A few years ago I read the acclaimed book The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. It is an account of the dangerous journey that ex-President Theodore Roosevelt took on a tributary of the Amazon in South America. Along the way, he and his fellow explorers endured unbelievable hardships, which included facing starvation, Indian attacks, disease, and even murder, as well as losing their canoes and supplies to rapids. But Roosevelt made the journey successfully, and the river was later named after him.

When I finished the book, I concluded that a jungle can be a good metaphor for the fearful conditions many of us face. Whether we actually live in the kind of jungle those explorers had to deal with or live in a bustling and sometimes chaotic city, or face problems in the suburbs, there are situations that even the best of us can find terrifying. For me, such a situation happened when I suddenly became very ill.

A while back, I began to feel some internal pain. I prayed diligently about this and felt I was making progress. But within a few days, I was engulfed in symptoms that kept me in bed. Eating, breathing, and going to the bathroom became increasingly difficult. I was beginning to lose weight. I felt trapped in a jungle of fear.

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