Stairway to Heaven (Christian Single Magazine)
“By the lines carved in his face, I knew that Captain Owen had seen the sea. For 20-plus years, he’d taken pilgrims from the village of Port Magee to Skellig Michael, a rocky island off the southwestern coast of Ireland.
“So the water will be calm today?” I ventured, looking out at the sea.
The captain grinned and continued to prepare for departure. “Lad,” he finally said in a thick Irish brogue, “the stomach of the ocean is upset today. I hope you’ve had a small breakfast and aren’t afraid of getting wet.”
For eggs and three slices of ham churned in m stomach as I returned to my seat in the 30-foot boat. I hoped he was kidding.
He wasn’t. Up . . . down . . . splash. Up . . . down . . . splash. It was the scariest moment of my life. I can still feel the wild movement of the boat, tossing us around like an empty can caught in the hands of an angry ocean.
Frantically I turned on my video camera in hopes of submitting the tape to some TV show like “When Nature Goes Terrible Wrong.” After one sea-sickening hour, we docked at Skellig Michael.
Five hundred years after the birth of Christ, Christians docked on this island and built a monastery on its summit. A thousand-year-old stairway would take us to that site. Six hundred cracked and weathered steps held us to the hills. At times the path was only two or three feet wide, and the wet patches were extremely slippery. One small acident, a slight slip of the sole, and a poor pilgrim would fall on the sharp rocks hundreds of feet below.
The pilgrims I was traveling with were a good distance away, and for 30 minutes I climbed the rocks alone. Birds swarmed around me, wind slammed against me, and I began to doubt that I would make it to the top. My legs were weary, my lungs were weasy, and I felt that I was all alone, climbing a stairway to heaven with hell nipping at my heels.
But even in my loneliness, I knew I wasn’t alone. Plgrims are never called to walk alone. In even the most difficult circumstances, the God who pulls us to Himself joins us for the journey.”
(For full article, refer to Christian Single Magazine, March 2007, page 39)