This is the first in a series of Campfire Stories from the Good Faith podcast, featuring those in our community who gather around the campfire each week.

Below, Bryan shares his story about an expedition into the backcountry that went haywire and the anxiety that ensued. If you find Bryan’s story relatable, be sure to check out the below Good Faith podcast episodes that help us understand how to approach anxiety from a Christian worldview.

• “The Anxiety Opportunity and Loss” with Nancy French and Curtis Chang
• “Why Are Teens Growing More Anxious?” with David French and Curtis Chang
• “What the Next Generation of Christians” Needs with David French and Curtis Chang
• “How anxious institutions affect us all” with Yuval Levin and Curtis Chang
• “Anxiety and Immigration” with Curtis Chang

My name is Bryan. And I am a worrier. It’s been zero days since my last worry.

I am also a consummate optimist. No, not that kind of optimist. I am an optim-izer. I optimize everything I can. When I see something, I focus on how it could be better. But I can also take a bad situation, and through my patented process of optimization, make it infinitely worse… in my mind.

Like the time I went looking for turkeys and instead found sand scorpions in the snow.

Last winter, while elk hunting in the Colockum wilderness, I saw a ton of turkey sign. And when it came time for spring turkey season, I planned a weekend hunt with my friend Chris. But before we headed to the Colockum, I wanted to check out another area to the west in the Manastash wilderness, just in case it was better.

We planned on tenting it, but another friend offered to let me borrow one of his company’s rugged camping trailers. Excited to not sleep on the ground, Chris and I headed out. We passed a campsite of some fellow turkey hunters with a nod and a wave. After several more miles, we encountered patches of snow, which we assumed would thin out. It didn’t.

Rounding a corner, we saw snow covering the road for as far as we could see. But we couldn’t stop and back up; we had to keep moving forward and keep our momentum up. At the end of a straight stretch, I could see ahead of us the clear patch of road that I knew would be there. Relief.

Only, we didn’t make it. We got about 30 feet from it and sank into snow that was too deep and too soft to let us pass. We were stuck. It was about 6:00 p.m.

We spent several hours trying to dig ourselves out with ski poles and a crowbar. We stuffed branches, sticks, rocks — even a tow chain — under the tires, hoping something would bite and give us traction. Nothing. Chris and I dug in the snow, chastising ourselves for being so “amateur.”

At about 8:00 p.m., I stood up and said, “I’m out of breath.”

Chris immediately stopped. “Don’t go dying on me now.”

I hadn’t even considered doing that — at least, not until he suggested it. Then that’s all I could think about. My dad died suddenly the previous year from a genetic heart defect, and I had the same genetic defect. My mind began to race. We decided to call it quits on “Operation Dig Out the Truck.”

Chris was inflating his sleeping mat when he stood up and turned towards me with a blank look, like he was about to pass out. “Are you okay?” I asked. My mind continued to “optimize” all the ways our situation could get worse. I imagined him passing out and falling over backwards, sliding down the ravine 80 feet or so into the creek and woods below.

Then I imagined my own heart stopping, my body collapsing in the snow. Situation optimized! Neat.

At 9:00 p.m., we crawled into the uneven, slanted trailer and tried to sleep. But the night dragged on forever, and my imagination had only just begun to optimize.

I started telling myself all sorts of stories. I told myself the story of the people that would find our frozen bodies. The story of my kids growing up without a dad. The story of Chris and I making it out of the mountains only to have my truck and all our gear trashed or stolen in our absence. I imagined the cost of the rescue and going thousands of dollars into debt. I imagined my friend’s company suing me for the loss of their property. I told myself stories about social collapse, political chaos, apocalyptic futures.

I was a mess. In addition to my climbing heart rate, my jaw started to lock. I couldn’t open or close my mouth. I couldn’t sleep, but I could optimize. Then it began to rain.

God, please make it a warm rain. Melt this snow.

In answer to my prayer, the rain grew heavier. Then it stopped.

Ah well, better than nothing, I suppose… unless—was it colder?

I opened the door on the uphill side of the trailer and noticed that the rain had indeed stopped falling and had been replaced by falling snow. That was worse.

Turns out weather is a great optimizer too!

I repeated Psalm 23, over and over again. In elementary school, I memorized the twenty-third Psalm in the King James and have held it mostly intact in my mind ever since. Every time my brain felt like it was on the verge of being submerged by my cascading anxiousness, I worked my way through the psalm.

In the morning, we got up and began the eight or ten mile hike back towards civilization. I continued to weave my stories as we walked, dodging Psalm 23’s feeble attempts to soothe.

At mile three, Chris finally said, “Hey, we should pray about this. We haven’t done that yet.”

“Speak for yourself,” I replied. “I’ve been praying non-stop since last night. But, yes, go ahead.”

Ordinarily, I would have suggested that we pray, especially with Chris, who is like a younger brother to me. I’ve always been the Hardy to his Laurel, the Garfield to his Odie, the preacher to his parishioner. Many times I’ve offered up prayers for his life’s circumstances. But, this time, he stepped up. I didn’t know if he could see me unraveling at the relentless stories I was attacking myself with, but he prayed a very earnest prayer.

Chris prayed for our health. He prayed for deliverance. Amen. Simple. It was very touching and I had a few tears in my eyes.

What’s up with these tears? Was someone cutting onions nearby?

Tears of gratitude, future grief, possible embarrassment, and probably some tears of relief, too. I’ll be fine. It’s just stuff. Ten miles is nothing. If I lose the truck and the trailer, so be it.

With one mile to go before we reached the turkey hunters’ camp, we heard a rumbling coming up the road. It was a jacked up 4×4 Jeep. Actually, it was like nine jacked up 4×4 Jeeps! I tried to dissuade the driver from going up the road and taking all our stuff. “Sorry, man. I’m about to mess up your day. My truck and trailer are blocking the road about five miles up. We’re stuck in the snow and there’s no way anyone is getting out of here alive.”

To my surprise, they responded with excitement. The group had almost gone to Colockum for the day, but when they heard that it was dry and boring, they changed their plans. The guy in the front car said we should jump in the white Jeep behind him and that they would get us out.

He didn’t even listen to see if we were interested in his help (which, of course, we were). He pulled up his CB and said, “We got us an adventure today! We’re going to go rescue these guys’ truck! Woohoo!” There were mutual cheers over the CB, some horns honked, some battle cries were offered up.

Within 30 minutes of encountering the off-roaders, they had hooked up two Jeeps with winches, deflated my tires by half, and pulled us out of the snow and onto dry ground. They were laughing, playing, having fun. This was what they wanted to be doing. They said they were an off-road club from Moses Lake called the Sand Scorpions. With a wave, and the parting advice “Momentum is your friend,” they were off.

Chris and I got in my truck, turned around on the dry ground, took a deep breath, and motored back down the road. We didn’t have any trouble. We kept up our momentum.

We got down to Les Schwab in Ellensburg and filled the tires back up. It wasn’t even 10:30 a.m.

Imagine if I hadn’t worried. I would have gotten a good night’s sleep. I would have woken up refreshed, taken some time to eat breakfast. Eventually, the guys in their Jeeps would have arrived and helped us. No optimizing necessary.

Safe at last, we decided there was still plenty of weekend left, so we drove over to Colockum and found a relatively dry spot to camp. No snow in sight. Sunday, we woke up to sunshine and found a few gobblers that we chased across a mile-wide canyon before they got away. It was a blast.

“Who of you, by worrying, can add an hour to his life?” Jesus asks. Not me. I had let my ability to optimize have its way with me, burying myself in an avalanche of horrific “What if?” scenarios. I assumed the worst. I optimized the worst. Thank God He had a pack of off-roaders who optimized for fun in Manastash, instead of optimizing in the safe and dry Colockum hills.

When I got home, I started looking at Jeeps for sale and pricing out winches, locking differentials, and other rescue gear for my truck. Rather than optimizing my anxiety, I had a new healthy focus for my optimization skills.

I also logged on to the Sand Scorpion’s website and bought a lifetime membership for five bucks.