Late Thursday afternoon my sister Verla told me about Swindoll’s Insight For Living using the facts of the Aron Lee Ralston brush with death in his Thursday/Friday segments. Immediately, I was compelled to send you both Part I & II, even though I’d earlier suggested you do some reflective spiritual analysis/discernment. Hopefully this will fuel that process, as we continually strive to be vigilantly alert living in the moments of the opportunities He graciously provides us.
HIS BOTTOM LINE:
Claim the Facts!
Transcend the Fiction!
Experience His Risen Reality!
An In-The-Moment After Thought:
I’m compelled to share with you readers what I believe will some day be a Paul Harvey type “The Rest of The Story” written about this Aron Lee Ralston. The Wiki bio in the After the Accident section in the 6th paragraph states “He later noted that surviving being trapped in the canyon had given him sense of invincibility, at a time that it should have humbled him.”Elsewhere I learned three of his friends committed suicide within weeks in 2006. On May 4, 2007 he appeared at the Swiss Economic Forum and gave a speech about how he “lost his hand, but gained his life back.”
Deseret News in April 9, 2009 published an article on Aron stating the year prior by his own estimate he was home five days per month between speaking engagements, climbs, races and hikes. Though strength and courage remain a focus of his speeches, Aron said, “Now I’ve identified what that source is, and it’s love. We’re tapping into that source of strength and courage when we feel love …. those opportunities are out there all the time and hopefully we’re doing it for that instead of just our own egos.” At that time, it was estimated Aron had encountered over 500 such worldwide speaking engagements concluding with standing ovations at $20-$30K per event, indeed a notable achievement!
Aron will turn 50 October 27, 2025, likely now assuredly knowing he’s not invincible, as well as being humbled daily by his two teenage children, nearing their twenties, named Leon and Elisabetta. His life’s motto, as of now is, “There are possibilities in our problems, transformation in our trauma, and blessings in our boulders.”
Fast forward I believe when “The Rest of the Story” will be published explaining how the Cross of Jesus bridged the insurmountable canyon separating a sinful Aron from Holy God, after all his attempts of Good Works, Religion, Philosophy, Morality, etc., proved futile in freeing his spirit, soul and body, heart, mind, and will from his “boulder bondage” preventing Aron from “crossing over” the canyon to freely receive Jesus’ forgiveness, repentance, transformation and empowerment. Join me in praying that Aron hears Christ’s call and fulfills his life’s destinies sooner than later. I am reminded of James 4:2 where summarized it states “You have not because you ask not!”
In this boulder bondage Aron experienced, I can’t help but think of Jesus entering Jerusalem being praised by the multitudes such that some of the Pharisees said to Jesus in Luke 19: 39-40, “Master, rebuke thy disciples” to which He replied “I tell you that, if these shall hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” Imagine, inanimate rocks praising God when those created in His image refuse to thank and praise Holy God! I also am reminded that Aron, as are all of us, someday at the time of our choosing, contently grazing His pastures as revealed in John 10:9 “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”