Finding Grace in Deep Darkness: A Spelunking Story

I’d honestly had second thoughts before the excursion. The main cavern tour that I’d signed up for with Answers in Genesis’ Educational Content Department didn’t worry me. But the four-hour spelunking expedition that I’d also opted into, alongside an even smaller group of colleagues? That kept me awake for a couple of nights.

Sure, I loved caving. I’d even joined a caving club during my undergrad. That spelunking trip had been epic—except perhaps when I needed to belly crawl through a tunnel so tight, all I could see were the boot soles of the caver ahead. Four hours of that might be a little (or a lot) much. What was I getting myself into?

A phone call to the caverns confirmed “no belly-crawling required.” I soon discovered, however, that the day would involve some other adrenaline-pumping plot twists.

Enter a certain wooden shed in Indiana, peer over the edge of a wide tube emerging from the floor, and you’ll see ladder rungs vanishing downward into darkness. This 90-something-foot ladder plunges straight into the earth. (But no worries, there’s a harness. Plus, you might meet a friendly bat on the way down. So friendly, it may flutter awake to land briefly on one of your colleagues. True story.)

Descending further into the cave.

Down, down, down you climb, rung after rung, until you can’t believe you still haven’t reached the bottom. When your boots finally hit the muddy rocks below, you shine your headlamp through a vaporous cavern to illuminate a high ceiling—complete with a few extra bats. But you can’t visit the wildlife for too long. Not when your buddies are gearing up to descend another rope into the next abyss.

After attaching your harness to the rope, you caaare-ful-ly pick your way backward over the edge of a cliff. You navigate down a steep slope toward the sound of running water, landing in another chamber that features a small waterfall. Skirting the rock ledge around the falls, you follow your friends into a knee-deep underground river. The murky water soaks through your boots as you feel your way upstream, keeping an eye out for ghostly white crayfish or translucent cave fish.

Slosh, slosh, slosh. The water rises even deeper in places as you press forward.

“Watch out for that rock underwater,” a person ahead says.

Slosh, slosh, slosh.

“Look out for that hole.”

Slosh, slosh, slosh.

After slosh-slosh-sloshing awhile longer, you step ashore to where a row of muddy kayaks, paddles, and life jackets await. The thunder of boats against rocks fills the cavern for the next few minutes until each person floats on the river in a sit-on-top kayak. Paddle in hand, you glide single file over the water, ducking when necessary to avoid the low ceiling.

Before long, ducking isn’t enough.

Laying back as far as you can, you lower your head into the seat of the kayak to keep your helmet from scraping the roof. There’s no need for a paddle now. With only a foot or less of clearance between your face and the ceiling, you can move forward simply by pushing your hands against the roof. Steering a kayak this way isn’t the easiest. But you get the hang of it. Meanwhile, it’s best not to think about the vast amount of earth directly above your nose.

Eventually, the ceiling lifts enough for everyone to sit upright again. This is the farthest your guide will take you. Everyone switches off their headlamps, enclosing the group in a curtain of velvety darkness. Someone suggests a hymn, and another person begins to sing “Amazing Grace.” Soon, three-part harmonies echo off the walls. Great acoustics.

It was there, singing in the dark, that I remembered a quote from Corrie ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place. Imprisoned in a concentration camp for hiding Jewish people from Nazis, Corrie’s sister Betsie reminded her, “There is no pit so deep that [Jesus] is not deeper still.”1

This is a perfect picture of what she was talking about, I thought. It was (literally) the darkest point of a journey that had initially scared me. And it was also the moment that I became the most aware of God’s amazing grace.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
 Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
 If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
 and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
 and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
 and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
 the night is bright as the day,
 for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:7–12)

Now that’s a truth more profound than even a 90-something-foot ladder can reach.