I will not adequately be able to put into words the range of emotions I felt from Saturday to Saturday… It was a week where I saw, felt and heard God move in big ways.
I’ll start at the begining… The day before I was scheduled to leave for a Mission Trip to Monterrey Mexico only to be told it was canceled because of Hurricane Alex, so I decided to join the family at Indian Lake for the weekend. Then Saturday morning I get a call that LifePoint had an opportunity to go and help with the relief efforts, so my long weekend with the family was just cut short by several days…
Later that same day I experienced the longest, most intense 3 seconds of my life… Go ahead count to 3. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three… Doesn’t seem that long does it? I mean what can really happen in 3 seconds? A lot!
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and we all decided to take a boat ride and do some “tubbing” on the lake. I say tubbing lightly, it was really coasting with a tube tided to the end of the boat for the most part. My nephews went and fell off with no issues… My 7 yr old niece goes and no big deal… My oldest daughter Abi (9) goes (And does awesome!) falls off and no big deal, then it’s my middle daughter (6) Morgan’s turn.
She was a bit scared at first and something in me felt nervous for her and I prayed quietly that God would keep her safe and give her courage. She gets on is doing amazing and actually asks to go faster… To say I was proud is an understatement…
Here she is

As you can tell we are flying at this point, lol. Everything is going great, just waiting for the inevitable… The fall off.
One thousand one… One thousand two… One thousand three…
3 seconds changed everything. 3 seconds almost changed my life and my families lives forever. It was those 3 seconds that I still replay over and over in my mind… 3 of the longest seconds of my entire life.
As I said… I was waiting for the inevitable, the fall off the tube. Then it happened… And here it is.

The picture doesn’t look that bad… But the unthinkable happened. As you can see Morgan (unlike all the others) didn’t fall off the back of the tube, but instead fell off and stayed inside the tube. Instead of falling off the back and sitting in the water, Morgan fell of and stayed inside the tube. Her legs dangled above the tube while her body forced up by her life jacket was stuck under the tube, her head now face down in the water… She was stuck under the tube and she was drowning… Literally.
There I was on the back of the boat taking pictures, watching all this unfold…
One thousand one… One thousand two… One thousand three…
Here is what I remember… I let go of the camera and as I dive fully clothed in the water I hear Janna, my wife, yell “Andy get her”.
One thousand one… One thousand two… One thousand three…
As I hit the water I’m amazed at how quickly/intensely I’m praying… Pleading to God to protect her from taking on water, my mind is racing with what to do once I reach her. I remember thinking “what will I do if she is unconscious”? I have no idea how I got there, I don’t know if I swam or if the momentum of the dive got me there. All I remember is popping out of the water and still seeing my daughters legs caught in the tube, I quickly flipped the tube off of her and grabbed her.
She wrapped her arms around me as tightly as she could and I grabbed ahold of the tube as my brother-in-law pulled us in. I’m exhausted… My mind is racing with thoughts of “what if”… She is crying and I’m all but crying and all I want to do is hold her.
As we drive in the boat to McDonalds for ice cream… Yea you read that right, we had earned some ice cream at that point. My mind was racing with a million thoughts, but mostly I was grateful… I know that afternoon God intervened on our behalf, I know there is no way that Morgan in her panic could have held her breath and not taken on some water. I know without a doubt that God was on that lake and for whatever reason stepped in so that I still have one of my little girls.
3 seconds… It’s 3 seconds I’ll never forget, it’s 3 seconds I wish never happened, it’s 3 seconds that changed my life, it’s three seconds that grew my faith.
-Rainey