Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast

Episode 149 | Whitewater Lessons: From Adrenaline-Pumping Rapids to Life-Saving Moments

• Travis Rosinger and Dawn Rosinger

Share episode

You're about to get swept away on a thrilling adventure as we recount our recent whitewater rafting trip in Colorado. This isn't just a tale about conquering level four rapids, but a journey filled with adrenaline, life-saving moments, and powerful life lessons. Buckle up and get ready to navigate the powerful currents of this episode.

Caught between the thrill of the rapids and the primal fear of danger, we faced a moment that changed our perspective forever. Picture this: another raft capsizes, four people are flung into the swirling waters, and suddenly, it's up to us to save them. This unexpected turn of events brought us face to face with the true meaning of responsibility and selflessness. So gear up, this episode promises a wild ride and a heartwarming discussion that will leave you inspired to be a lifesaver and encourager in your own life and marriage.

Travis and Dawn Rosinger are the Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast Hosts and Authors of the books, Verbalosity - 7 Steps to a Verbally Generous and More Fulfilling Marriage and their newest book, Gripping -  What Matters Most | A Life and Relationships That Hold on to You

For more information about Travis and Dawn Rosinger go to Loving The Fight

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the loving the fight marriage podcast. We are so glad that you have tuned in, so thank you for listening. I'm pumped to hang out with each and every one of you, but you know what? I'm not alone. I'm here with my wife and my co host Don.

Speaker 2:

Hey everyone. We are sitting here in our studio on our day off enjoying the sunshine, and we've already done a couple interesting things just this morning, and to some people maybe they're like oh that's kind of weird, but to us they're interesting.

Speaker 1:

It's fun.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we woke up this morning and we jumped in our car. We realized, as we were driving away, one of our neighbors down the road was having this massive garage sale, like tents and like down their driveway, and they had this big sign. Every single thing in the driveway was 25 cents.

Speaker 1:

And who doesn't want to dig through their neighbors junk right?

Speaker 2:

It's funny because he actually asked us. He's like so do you guys live around here? We're like yeah, we just left down the road Three doors down but a quarter.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, that's so crazy. Like why doesn't he just give it away for free 25 cents? But super fun to look through his stuff.

Speaker 2:

We actually bought a couple toys and just some stuff that we probably didn't need, but we spent a whole 75 cents there.

Speaker 1:

I think we did. We broke a dollar bill.

Speaker 2:

After that we went to a discount store and it's just kind of a fun store to look at. It's these random things that are, for some reason, marked very reasonably.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're so affordable. But apparently we're not alone. And wanting to go to this discount store, I mean, there's like every time we go there, I think, about 100 people in line waiting for the doors to open Well today, the bargain that I found, that I was excited to find, was this cup, and it's a Stanley cup.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you've been seeing people carry around these big insulated cups, travis, they say Stanley, I feel like that's kind of a blast from the past. Isn't that a brand?

Speaker 1:

from when we were younger? Yes, but it keeps everything cold.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So it's a 40 ounce cup Amazing. And they're normally 45 to $50. For some reason there was one on the shelf and it was marked for $9.99. And so I grabbed it, I put it in my bag and I started continuing shopping. Well, someone saw me put it and they looked at it like where'd you find that? How much was it? And then, as we went to the checkout line, I pulled it out and I'm like look at what I found. And people were like where did you find that cup? And they're like how much was it? And I'm like, well, it was $9.99. So I was like the envy of the line.

Speaker 1:

You were.

Speaker 2:

And even as we were leaving there was two gals were like where did you find that cup? But I'm like it was on the shelf for $9.99. But I came home, I washed it, I cleaned it. I'm super excited to use it and so I have a $50 cup for it. What 10 bucks? So I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I know, so cheap. You scored a deal and I don't know why. But simple pleasures in life are just so much fun. They are Slow morning day off, being able to go and hit the garage sale and then the discount store and then really just kind of lounged and hung out and now we're recording. I got to bake this afternoon which was great.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I love baking some chocolate cookies and some cappuccino brownies that we're going to bring. We're going over to someone's house tonight, we're bringing some dessert how fun is that. And I got my large diet Mountain Dew.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, you guys know I'm kind of addicted to diet Mountain Dew.

Speaker 2:

I try not to drink as much during the week, but today is my weekend, so I went and I grabbed one, so I've been sipping on that as well, so it's been a great day.

Speaker 1:

And a day off would not be complete without me being able to grab my Martin guitar.

Speaker 2:

And I played for.

Speaker 1:

I think like 45 minutes on the front porch.

Speaker 2:

You were.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, again, we are so glad that you guys are here.

Speaker 1:

We've had a great day, a great week, and we're hoping that you've had a great week as well.

Speaker 1:

Well, as many of you are aware, we just got back a little over a week ago, from our family vacation in Colorado, and when I was there, I was able to go on a whitewater rafting trip.

Speaker 1:

It was my son's idea. He invited me and my son-in-law to go along with them, so there's three of us guys, and so while we were there in Colorado, we drove I think it was about an hour and a half further up into the mountains. We got to a mountain town and that's where the outfitters were that we're going to be able to get all of our equipment, and so they got us all set up they were the ones with the guides and the rafts and so they put us on a bus and they drove us even further up into the mountains with these rafts. And so, on our way up there, one of the head people over the whole kind of day's adventure that we were going to be going down this river with, he began to give us some instructions on how to really just stay safe in the raft Don't you just appreciate those guides that they actually know what they're doing and so they're able to give their knowledge to you guys so you can understand what you're about to take part in.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I was on the edge of my seat because I had some nervousness because I had never done whitewater rafting before. So he's given us these instructions and he's like hey, here's how you stay safe while you're in the raft. And oh, by the way, it doesn't happen very often, it's kind of rare. But if you ever get thrown from the raft, here's how you stay safe, stay alive in the water. And then he said but if, for some reason and again he stressed, it doesn't, it's kind of rare, it doesn't really happen. But he said, if, for some reason, you suddenly find that you're in the raft but there's somebody else that has been thrown into the water, he said he looked at each of us and he said hey, if you see a swimmer, a person that has been thrown into the water, it is your responsibility to pull them from the water.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I think that would make me a little bit nervous if I was hearing this guide tell me what to do if someone gets thrown in the water. I'd instantly think, oh no, I'm going to go overboard, I'm going to get in the water.

Speaker 1:

It did and I'm like, oh my gosh, I just signed up to pay to be a tourist to go down this river, but now I should get like combat pay for being able to save somebody yeah pull them out.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, isn't that your job? You're the guide. And he just looked at us and he said, look, your guides can't pull everybody out. If they're closest to you. It's your job to pull the swimmer out. So we got to the top of the mountain. We put eight rafts in there. Now the cool thing was the guy that was overseeing the day's adventure all eight of the actual rafts that were going down the river. He ended up being our guide and our raft.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was so cool. I wouldn't want him in my boat too.

Speaker 1:

It was great because he's the most experienced guy and man, loads and loads of wisdom. There were three guys that we didn't know on the right side that would have ores and they would paddle. There were three of us guys on the left side. I was in the front, my son was immediately behind me and then my son-in-law was behind him and you know this, don, but he had a GoPro high-def video camera on his helmet, which was so cool.

Speaker 1:

It was amazing, and so we've got, like, I think, an hour and a half, two hours of footage of us going down this crazy raging river.

Speaker 2:

And it's so fun. You let us watch that. When you guys got back, as you were telling us, there's like how fun, how cool, like you got to verbalize it and we actually physically got to see with our eyes.

Speaker 1:

But you guys, just I know, made it even better, told the story and you watched it. Well, the guide was behind my son-in-law and we started going down this river. Now this is the Arkansas River and of course, it's in the mountains of Colorado and there's a thousand foot rock wall on our right and a thousand foot rock wall on our left.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful man, incredible Phenomenal. It's called the Royal Gorge and they call it Royal because it's 1100 feet up on both sides Now they kind of rate different rapids and so they say a level five or class five rapid. You know that you take a raft down. That's one where somebody actually was at one point able to get down it without dying. Wow.

Speaker 2:

So that gives you an idea to ever do a level five of how crazy yeah, how crazy it is to go down there.

Speaker 1:

Now, fortunately we weren't doing level fives, but we were doing a bunch of level fours and then a whole bunch of level threes over, I think, about a two hour a whitewater rafting trip down again the Arkansas River. So we got going and our guide was behind us and again there were three on the right and three on the left and we were starting to paddle. He taught us how to paddle correctly. I mean, that was how you didn't flip your raft and how you stayed safe. So we got going, went through a couple of level threes and then we hit our first level four rapids and he warned us. He said it's about to get really crazy. And sure enough it did.

Speaker 1:

Our raft went up and down, we were taking on water. I'm thinking how are we going to get out of this? Finally we punched through, we got to the other side and that's when I turned around to smile at my son nervously and he was gone. It wasn't in the boat. He had been thrown from the raft in the middle of the level four rapids the first one and now, fortunately, when he had been thrown, he grabbed. There was a rope that dangled on the side of the raft. He grabbed it and then he was able to pull himself up to the raft and then we got him back in. But man.

Speaker 2:

the guy sitting next to him on the right side was jacked and literally just kind of grabbed him and pulled him in it was crazy to see on the video. But so he wasn't out of the raft for a long time, but I'm sure it startled him.

Speaker 1:

I bet it did. It was great to have incredible Hulk in there to rip him out of the water back into the raft. So then we hit a couple more level threes, but after those are good you.

Speaker 2:

You could tell, you knew what you were doing. At that point we got better and better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we were working as a team and then we came up to the next level four, and it was right away. Now, bear in mind that these rapids all have names, and so most of these level four rapids were like bone crusher or boat eater or you know, there's just the wall.

Speaker 2:

They should do a better job naming them like you know Lily, or flower, or sun to make you feel a little bit more encouraged going down these little four. Why such harsh names?

Speaker 1:

Well, it's funny you say that because the first one was called sunshine and we lost my son or our son out of the out of the raft, so that we're like okay now we're going to typhoon.

Speaker 2:

Look like if that's our sunshine, like that we're going to hit some bad ones.

Speaker 1:

So we went to go hit the next level four and our guide warned us that there would actually be two in a row. We had hit it and then there would be like a couple second break and then we had hit another level four. So he's like hang on for dear life. So we got into it. Sure enough, the raft is going up and down, water's coming on. We're paddling like crazy, avoiding rocks, trying to stay alive. And that's when we came through that, that first level four rapid, and I noticed the raft in front of us had gotten through as well. And then they suddenly slammed up against the wall. The whole raft went up on its side. Then one edge of the raft started to curl over and four people dropped into the river as you guys are going through this oh my you see the people in front of you flying out of their boat.

Speaker 2:

It was crazy.

Speaker 1:

And immediately they're bobbing up and down. They're drinking water. You can tell they're crying. There were several ladies, three ladies, one guy and they're screaming. Help me, help me.

Speaker 2:

It looked horrible on the video. Sheer terror in their eyes.

Speaker 1:

Sheer terror, yeah. And so our guide stands up and he's like we have swimmers, get the swimmers, that's what they call people that are thrown from the raft. And and immediately, I was, you know, kind of had a flashback to what he said in the bus you know, when he trained, you gave us this training.

Speaker 2:

That would rarely happen that people would be thrown from the raft. Of course it happened to you guys.

Speaker 1:

And so immediately I was like, okay, it's my responsibility to save the swimmers, to pull them out. And so I grabbed my or, flipping it around on the other end of the or, where I was holding is a T and it's a handle, and so it works really well that I put it out the the person that was in the front. There were four that had fallen into the water and they're fighting the rapids. I put it out to the one in front and she reached for it multiple times, missed it and finally it probably like the fourth time she grabbed it and I started pulling her up to the raft. And we got her to the raft, and that's when the guy next to me that had been rowing all three of them, you know had been helping us to not flip over. He helps me grab her, and we had to use our whole bodies and we pulled her and she flew up into the raft and then she landed on top of us.

Speaker 1:

And at that moment, that's when I realized, oh no, we're hitting the second set of level four rapids and I thought how on earth are we going to make it out of this alive? And and the cool thing was, you know, again, we had tons of of rapids and we're up and down and tons of water is coming on and finally we punched through that second a half of that level four, and I turn around and I looked and the awesome thing was is that my son behind me had also pulled another person into the raft, and then my son the gal that he pulled in looked terrified On the video.

Speaker 2:

she thought she was going to die. You should have seen it. And she was actually on top of the other gentleman almost pushing him under the water, and I'm like get her get her and then get him and it was nuts, it was crazy.

Speaker 1:

She had immediately jumped on him, using him for a flotation device.

Speaker 2:

This poor guy who was injured by the way, yeah, oh no.

Speaker 1:

He had blown out his knee, I think, cracked his ribs, hit his head. I mean he was a mess, but my son in law, behind my son, had pulled him out, so it was so cool.

Speaker 2:

And then fourth person you said there was four people. The fourth person the raft behind you was able to get.

Speaker 1:

They were. We missed one, yeah, and the raft behind us saved that person and pulled them. They plucked them out of the water. Now we signed up to be tourists and suddenly we're in a Hollywood movie, saving people ourselves, not just viewing the rapids and experiencing them, and it was so cool. We finally kind of it got kind of mellow and calm, yes, and we finally all gathered all the rafts together on a bank immediately after that fourth you know, level four rapids, and it was at that moment we got up against the shore that the young lady, who was 19, that I had pulled up out of the water into a raft. She looked at me. She's bawling her head off, crying, sobbing, and she looks at me and she says thank you for saving my life, thank you so much. She was petrified.

Speaker 2:

She was. You see her in the video. She was Terrified.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Like I feel I can understand why she said thank you to you, because you pulled her out of that horrible the rapids and pulled her in, pulled her to safety. We did?

Speaker 1:

We did. But immediately I'm thinking, hey, I didn't save your life, I just pulled you out of the water. I just plucked you out of there. But she's like, no, you saved my life and it was just. It was funny but emotional and I felt really good. I was like, oh my gosh, I got my money's worth. This was so worth it. Again, one of the best experiences of my life.

Speaker 2:

I think it would have been hard for me to believe that story if my son, I, wouldn't have had his GoPro on, if he wouldn't have had it all in video and as you were explaining this, we got to see it. I'm like, yeah, I see it. That is nuts. What you guys went through that experience is crazy.

Speaker 1:

It is so crazy and, yeah, I mean it's like a Hollywood movie, the video is fabulous. So why do we tell you guys about this story, this experience? Well, it's because it's just like our lives as followers of Jesus. In fact, in the Bible, in the book of Jude Jude is one of the coolest books of the Bible in the New Testament. Here's what it says. You know he's been talking about all the crazy things that are going to happen near the end of the world and all the evil that people are going to get involved in and you know it all destroy their lives or pull them the wrong direction. And here's what he says to us who are followers of Jesus. He says but you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. So he's like hey guys, things are going to get really bad. You're going to hit some level four, level, five, class, you know five rapids, and all hell is going to break loose in the world. And he's like but hold on a second, build yourself up in your most holy faith and remember to keep yourself in God's love, because the mercy of our Lord, jesus Christ, is going to bring you to eternal life. And so he says that he wants us to encourage ourselves. And then he says these incredible words. He says be merciful to those who doubt, save others by snatching them from the fire, and to others, show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Speaker 1:

And as I got on the the the bus and we drove back to our car, you know, and and was drying off, and I was thinking about that experience of snatching, pulling people out of the water and helping to save them, this verse and all of our lives, it popped back in my mind as a follower of Jesus.

Speaker 1:

Why? Because he says save others by snatching them from the fire. Now, jude isn't talking about actually pulling people out of a burning house that's on fire, pulling people out of a big bonfire in somebody's backyard where they've tripped and they've fallen in. It's metaphorical the fire is pull them out of the danger that they're in in their life. So, just like my guide said you know the guide in the raft he said hey, if someone goes into the water, it's your responsibility to save them. We wanted to remind you, guys, that if there are people that are in the fire, that are in the water, that churning water, and they're going under and they might, you know, eternally drift away from God or fall into deep darkness or evil, and if they're there, man, it's your responsibility, it's my responsibility to pluck them from that danger, to pluck them from that fire.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate how you had a this example of you in the raft taking your ore, flipping around and pulling someone in, and how that goes so well with this verse and just in life, cause there's people all around us who are in danger or they're. They're kind of bobbing up and down and they're looking for something to grab onto. And because we have Jesus in our heart, in our life, he we have this hope, we have this freedom that we can share with others and they can experience that to help them get out of that danger, to get out of those rough spots, to get out of the rapids that they're going through and, honestly, sometimes we just have to stop and go. Okay, I'm going to turn my oar around really quick and I'm going to help pull this person in.

Speaker 1:

We don't have to do it alone at all.

Speaker 2:

I mean, god gives us and equips us with everything that we need, but being aware, like if your eyes were closed you wouldn't have seen those people, the raft flip over and them in the water. Your eyes had to be open, but you also had to be willing to put action behind. You know what you're thinking like. I'm going to help save these people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that you're saying that, dom, because think of how many times where we've just had these brief moments of dread or hopelessness in our lives or we've hit, you know, against a wall, whether it's physically or in a relationship, or a setback in a job, and it's just a brief moment of dread, you know, kind of like going through the rapids but not being flung from the raft. But then there are those people around us that they feel deep darkness and deep dread and deep, you know, like lostness. And if we just sit there and we're tourists and we just, you know, float down the river of life and we don't turn that oar around, like you mentioned, man, we are dropping the ball, we are shirking our responsibilities. So how do we do that? How do we save the swimmers? How do we get them? Like our guide said, well, first of all you got to identify who the swimmers are in your life.

Speaker 2:

I agree with that Like you, like you trust again. Your eyes were just open and you saw that raft. You saw that there was four people in the water. Those were your swimmers at that moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so part of that, what you said, is just keeping your eyes open. So who are the friends that you have around you that maybe they never disclose how they're really feeling or how they're really doing a life, and they're kind of a buttoned up book that never gets opened? That might be a swimmer. That might be somebody you know that that suddenly decides to commit suicide or suddenly decides to go off the deep end. Maybe it's a struggling family member, somebody that you love, you care about, you've known your whole life, but they're just struggling over and over again. The swimmers could also be people who have no one who believes in them or no one who cheers them on. We've all met people like that in our own lives or in the world around us. And a swimmer could also be those who the rest of the world have given up on. Not only do they not have somebody cheering them on, but maybe they're fully, completely isolated, all alone, and they're in total despair, total loneliness. So how do you rescue the swimmers?

Speaker 2:

Travis, I think you know my personality. When I feel like I see people in danger and there's been times in my life where I have seen someone and I run towards them. If they're having a medical emergency, if someone's about to hurt them physically or if I think something is going to happen, my personality is to run towards them, to run and help. I'm very aware of people around me surroundings and wanting to help. But sometimes I like what you said. Sometimes there is those people who are just quiet. Maybe they don't disclose how they're doing and stopping and just taking the time to ask and invest in people, even the quiet people or the people that are just sitting all alone. Maybe they feel like the world has given up on them and going and being their cheerleader, finding them and making sure that they have someone around them, supporting them, loving them, encouraging them.

Speaker 2:

I think it's so important. There are people all around us if we think about it. If we could just see a spiritual picture of everyone around us, we would see that they're swimmers, I think, all around us, that we might not physically be able to see with our eyes, but they're there. So how do we rescue the swimmers? How do we turn the oar around and reach out to those people, those swimmers in our life, the people that are around us that may be struggling. Well, the first one is just be available. Make sure that you are available, invest time in them. If you see or you hear or you think someone is struggling, take the time to invest in them. Show mercy. This is huge. If we're not empathetic, if we can't stop and show mercy for someone, how are we ever going to help them?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, again, going back to Jude, he said save others by snatching them from the fire. It's interesting because right before that he says be merciful to those who doubt and then save them by snatching them from the fire. The next thing he says to others show mercy. How do you save people? Be merciful, have compassion, have empathy and be that person that cares.

Speaker 2:

There's such a big difference between showing mercy or feeling the empathy, but then actually taking the action of that and doing something. So then give help, make sure it's tangible help, something that they can grab onto. That girl physically got to grab onto the orc. She knew what to grab onto. That would help save her, that would pull her in the boat and, most important, pray for people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, pray.

Speaker 2:

Pray, pray, pray. There's so many times on a weekend, even in our church, people will come up and they'll tell me that they're struggling with something. And you know what I do. I don't want to just say I will pray for you. We stop right there oftentimes and I'm like can I pray for you right now? I just believe in the power of prayer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's cool. We have a story after story, experience after experience, of times where we have prayed and there's an answer, or there's a miracle, or something happens. And it's not us, it's the living God in heaven and it's the faith that God has given all of us to be able to put that powerful tool of prayer into practice. So, hey guys, I mean we're just really wanting to encourage you to save the swimmers, pluck them out of the fire, the danger that they're in. Don't just be a tourist in life and go down the river and, you know, pay for your little entertainment man. Get involved, turn the oar around, reach out and grab ahold of them.

Speaker 2:

I know you guys are probably thinking hey, this is a marriage podcast. What does this have to do with marriage? Honestly, it has so much to do with marriage. If you could stop and realize that you and your spouse, your marriage, you guys have a mission and one of our missions is to help save the swimmers, to work as a team, to make sure that we're not always inward thinking, we're looking outward. We're helping people, we're doing everything that we can. We can do our part to help save those swimmers, to help bring them and ultimately, god is the one who actually spiritually saves them, but we are able to be a part of that process and make sure that they're at a good spot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and honestly, when I was 17, I almost drowned to death. Somebody pulled me out of the water and now pulling that 19-year-old young lady out, it's like I knew what it was like to be saved, but now I know what it's like to save someone, to pull them out and to be a husband and wife and be pulling people out of the danger of the you know, the river, the water of life, the churning waters, and into safety. Man, that is such a fun, incredible experience.

Speaker 2:

Right. So you guys, who are the swimmers around you, who are the people around you that may just need that extra bit of encouragement, love, or maybe they need that or where you can help pull them and keep your eyes open to the world around us.

Speaker 1:

All right With that. We want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Loving the Fight Marriage Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight, we'll see you next time.