Byte: Rand Timmerman ~ Miracles On The Appalachian Trail!

Rand tells several stories in this episode, including how he was able to be there for his brother when his brother needed him most. They were both in their 70's and decided to walk the Appalachian Trail-not knowing the magic, the beauty and the healing that trail was going to give them.

Transcript

Hi y'all and welcome back to the podcast.

This time I'm introducing you to Rand Timmerman.

And you know what?

He actually began walking the Appalachian Trail at age 72 and he tells so many incredible stories of he and his brother's adventures on that trail.

To be honest,

I really do think the miracle is how he showed up for his brother.

But then as you'll hear,

Many other miracle moments happened on their journey.

Some funny,

Some scary,

And some just meant to remind us that magic is all around.

So without further ado,

Here's my conversation with the really intrepid and kind of unstoppable Rand Timmerman.

Now I have an artificial leg and my right leg is a half inch shorter from the left where the artificial knee is,

So I limp.

And pretty badly actually,

And had for years.

And so we're limping.

I'm limping around the desert with him and and he starts talking about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I said,

You went,

Really?

He said,

Yeah.

I said,

Well what are you gonna do?

And he said,

Well I'm gonna,

I'm gonna take a bus down to Springer Mountain,

Georgia and start hiking.

And I said,

Oh,

Well that's not a very good plan.

That won't work.

And then I only saw my brother over the decades,

Usually like once a year when they would come east to see all the kids and they'd get a cottage and we'd go to the lake and stuff like that.

And my younger brother and I would get drunk and make fun of him because he was a bishop in the Mormon Church and he didn't drink and he was very boring.

And he took it all in good stride.

But then Edie had a stroke in 2011 and it was one of those deals where it was bad and it never got better.

It got worse.

And she was in a wheelchair and Ronnie took care of her very devoted,

Loving husband.

And and then she passed in 2017,

In November 17th,

I believe it was.

And he was devastated.

Wow.

Yeah,

But he had always been a very faithful man.

But,

You know,

He didn't talk about it very much.

I called him.

I had never been out there.

I had my own family life,

You know,

In the east.

So anyway,

I called him and then I said,

I'll come out.

And so I came out in January of 2018.

And he had told me on the phone,

Kirsten,

I'm going to.

I said,

What are you going to do?

Because I could tell he was really overwhelmed with grief.

He said,

I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail.

And my brain went danger,

Danger,

Danger.

That's because I'm 72.

He's 71.

I mean,

And I had hiked quite a bit on the Appalachian Trail over the years because,

You know,

Warriors come back from war and they have trauma.

And then they I ended up drinking too much sometimes.

And I would deal with things by just taking off and going in the mountains and hiking by myself for two or three days and fake charging with bears and just,

You know,

Being a man,

I guess,

And trying to keep myself together.

And so I knew quite a bit about it.

And so I went out in January and we're hiking in the desert of Utah.

Now,

I have an artificial leg and my right leg is a half inch shorter from the left where the artificial knee is.

So I limp and pretty badly,

Actually,

And had for years.

And so we're limping.

I'm limping around the desert with him.

And he starts talking about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I said,

You went?

Really?

He said,

Yeah.

I said,

Well,

What are you going to do?

And he said,

Well,

I'm going to I'm going to take a bus down to Springer Mountain,

Georgia and start hiking.

And I go,

Well,

That's not a very good plan.

That won't work.

The Appalachian Trail is twenty two hundred miles from Springer Mountain,

Georgia,

Kattegat Mountain in Maine,

Goes through 14 states.

The elevation goes over 600 mountains.

The elevation elevation changes.

It's almost a half a million feet.

Wow.

Longest footpath trail only in the whole world.

There's some trails that are longer,

None of them are footpath the whole way,

But everybody realizes the Appalachian Mountains are in their own league.

They're in the A league big time because it's so difficult.

About three million people hike on it every year,

But only about twenty five hundred to three thousand actually try to do it the whole way.

They call them through hikers and of that 17 percent.

So like 500 people a year.

So this is you know,

It's a monster.

It's very,

Very difficult.

And I like to brag,

It's probably the oldest,

Limpiest man to do it.

But so I didn't think he was serious,

But he was dead serious.

I said,

When?

He said,

March 22nd.

This year?

So for my brother,

Who's stricken with grief,

Is always believed in a higher power,

Never had a drinking problem,

Much more sane and rational person than his older brother to some extent.

But he was really struggling.

Edie was the love of his life.

You just can't even imagine.

Real quick.

So one more.

We didn't talk a lot and we never complained.

I was amazing when I got his journal and what he had written in there about how much pain he was in and we never complained like that.

But he was in spiritual and emotional pain from the loss of Edie.

And then Father's Day in 2018,

Really dark day.

We ran into a guy that was a ranger.

His name was Gene Anderson.

Talking to Gene,

I ended up walking with Gene some because he was going the same way I was.

Ronnie was going the other way.

And but Ronnie was really down the dumps and thinking about our dad,

You know,

Father's Day and all that.

And then you walked around a corner and it was this huge,

And there's a picture of it,

He took a picture of it,

Huge halo of bright sunlight in the trail.

Just this one spot.

And it looked like there was some kind of a huge,

You know,

Spiritual,

It could have been Jesus Christ,

It could have been Mohammed,

It could have been Buddha,

I don't know.

It could have been whatever you want it to be,

Right?

But Ronnie saw,

It was so magically overwhelming that he was actually afraid.

He turned around and he started to feel like he should run.

And then he goes,

Well,

Wait a minute,

No,

I've never ran away from anything.

So he turned back and then as he approached it,

He could feel the presence of Edie and our father.

And Edie's telling him,

Ronnie,

It's okay.

You're doing the right thing.

God is with us.

God,

I'm here with dad.

We're both here.

We're gonna,

You're gonna be with us someday.

It's good.

It's all good,

Ron.

You're doing the right,

You know.

And it took,

You know what God does for us?

He takes away the weight of our difficulties,

Right?

We still have them.

There's a sentence in the recovery program I'm in,

It's for,

It's anonymous and it's for alcoholics.

And it's,

God take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those.

I may seek the help of thy power,

Thy love in the way of life.

May I do thy will always,

Which basically is to serve people,

Right?

And so that's what he experienced.

That's what I experienced in the mountains.

Something that happened to me was that my perception of my higher power just grew immensely.

Hiking in the mountains because they're just so majestic.

And it was one moment for me.

We were in New Jersey.

We had just crossed the Hudson River.

I thought we got across the Hudson River,

The mountains got to be a little smaller.

They're not gonna be near us.

Oh my God.

No,

They're worse.

I swear to God.

So one morning,

I'm in New Jersey.

I know I'm in New Jersey.

I'm on top.

We had just crossed Bear Mountain and some other one.

And it's early in the morning.

There's nobody around.

Nothing.

I'm standing at the very top of the mountain.

There's two raptors up there flying around.

I just love to watch them float,

You know,

In the current and everything.

And I realize there's millions of people.

I'm in New Jersey.

There's millions of people down in the valleys,

But there's no sign of human being at all where I am at the top.

There's no contrails.

There's no power.

There's nothing.

All I can see is God's creation.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

God created all of this.

I could be the only man on the planet,

Right?

That's how powerful it was.

And then I finally,

I realized I'm looking way out.

I can see about 50 miles away.

I can see the top of some skyscrapers in New York City.

Oh my goodness.

Just look at that.

It was just stunning.

And you know,

From that point on,

My God got way bigger.

Just made me realize,

And somebody else said to me at one point,

Well,

Maybe it's because you felt so small.

Yes,

I did.

I felt overwhelmingly small,

But I did not feel insignificant.

Right?

God made me feel significant,

Even though I'm really small in his world.

I'm incredibly small.

Yeah.

Wow.

I have a purpose.

I had a purpose to do that with my brother.

I have purpose to work with guys every day.

So they don't drink.

I do that every day.

Um,

And I'm 80 years old now and I,

My life is filled with joy.

That's amazing.

How the heck does that happen?

I hope you all so appreciated the conversation that I had with Rand and Rand's reminder that we can be present to those who need us,

To those that we love in ways that maybe we can't even imagine yet.

To be honest,

I don't know if my sister and I would survive being on the Appalachian trail together,

But that doesn't mean that if she needed me,

I wouldn't drop everything to go and help her.

And I think Rand's story of hearing his brother's need of seeing his grief and just knowing that he could do something about it.

Well,

That's one of the miracles in this story.

And I think,

Yeah,

It would behoove all of us to recognize that and then live it out in our lives.

However,

Those opportunities present themselves.

I wanted to thank Rand for being on the show.

I also want to thank him for being so open and vulnerable with his stories.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Rand.

Be unstoppable.

I mean,

When he was telling me his story of,

You know,

Limping through the Appalachian trail,

And I was remembering my Camino journey and how I have two legs that function,

And I still complained.

I mean,

I actually couldn't believe it.

This human being has more fortitude,

More bravery,

More just tenaciousness than the average human being.

I just had to sit back in awe.

I think he is living proof that if you decide to do something and you have conviction,

Then you're gonna do it.

And it's gonna happen.

So be like Rand and never give up.

And Rand leads with this whole heart,

Too.

I want each and every one of you to know that.

He leads with his heart,

And he's here to make this world a better place.

See you all the next time for the next episode.

It's gonna be number 300,

Which is so exciting.

I'm really excited to get to this milestone,

And it's gonna drop in the very next week.