I have had many times when God has reached out to me and caught me when I was falling. I could tell stories about those times for hours. After all these memories come back to me, there is one that stands out the most. This is the biggest fall in my life and God definitely had to change my life to rescue me. In a way, he had to slap me across the face to show me how unfocused I was on him and selfish I was getting.

This was a time in my life where I knew God and I have known God for my whole life because of the way that my parents raised me, but I did not have a growing relationship with God. I was not constantly talking and living the way that God wants us to live and I was not following the exact path that God wanted me to be on. My life was going pretty great and I slowly started thinking that I did not really need God in my life. I never told myself that, but the way my daily routine went, it was clear that that is what was happening. It was a big enough problem that God needed to slap me across the face and tell me that I could not live a good life without him.

Walker Wilbanks, one of the best guys at my school. Every person I knew at that school claimed him as a friend. Not only a friend that you could have fun with but a friend who was accountable and trustworthy and a friend that was a follower of God. Early in the football season he was injured in a football game which resulted in him going to the hospital.

As I rode to the hospital with my dad after the game, and we found out his condition was much more serious than we thought, I started thinking about how valuable life is and how anything could happen any day of any year. The people closest to us could be taken away just like that. We were waiting in the waiting room with other Prep family when Landon, his brother, walked through the waiting room doors and told us with the most joyful smile that Walker was going to be just fine. At that moment, we all felt a moment of relief. The moment of relief didn't stay long when his condition worsened. I started talking to God about Walker and this is where he started to rescue me. 

The whole weekend was filled with an uncertainty if Walker was going to make it or not. It was filled with praying and scripture reading and a bonding with God. My dad coached Walker and seeing my dad upset was one of the hardest things about it. He hugged me so tight every time he got home from the hospital and I know exactly why. Not only was it growing the relationship with God and me, it was growing the relationship between my dad and me. 

Monday at school was one of the hardest days. It was not only for me, but for the rest of the faculty and students at Jackson Prep and even other schools. You could almost feel God’s presence in the hallways. After many school-wide prayers and individual prayers, Walker ran into God’s arms in Heaven Monday afternoon. It was at the moment when I got the phone call that I heard God say, “You have always needed me, you need me now, and you will need me every second in the future.”

Walker Wilbanks is the guy that God worked through to rescue me. I learned through him that God is always a need in my life. He was an example of the kind of guy that God wants us to be. My whole school and even the community grew closer to him. I cannot be thankful enough for the way that God broke my heart through him. I think about this every day and it is my goal to live like Walker and try to have half the impact that he had.

—Isabelle Box

Light: The candle of LOVE

Read: Ten ways to be perfect, JSB p. 100 (Exodus 16-17, 19-40)


Ask: How do the 10 commandments show us God’s love? 

Where might God be calling you to follow?

Pray: Ask for help to follow God.

Jesse Tree Ornament: Stone tablets

Act: Play “follow the leader”. Let everyone have a turn leading and following.