"The Angel of the LORD..."

 

So they say it was dead a long time... 

But with the other YFJ'ers I too believe that just before it struck
the Angel of he Lord slew it.

I also am pretty sure that Emily, standing in chest deep water, wasn't smiling like this when she,
thinking that she felt some drift wood, reached into the cloudy water and picked it up.


But anyway whether it was dead before or not I still know that:
"The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them."

Psalm 34:7

A Thousand Friends

"I'm going to miss you, sister!" the five words coming from the other side of the room, spoken in heartfelt sincerity, made my stomach hurt. "Me too!" I answered.

Only a few hours later, I was in the same spot as I was last year.

I had tried to avoid thinking too much about my lonely summer, but most everybody, including myself at times, didn't help much. Every few days Emily would do the math and come up with however many days were left, until YFJ.

 

Now as I'm sitting here missing my sisters, I think again of a friends words when he saw this hanging the kitchen wall:

"No wonder you were so lonely!"


'A sister is worth a thousand friends.'

Through the Storm

This was edited from a journal post written June 28, 2013.

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I  quickly rolled over in my sleeping bag. The flash of lighting that had woken me was followed by a boom and rumble. I turned and looked at my sister raised up on her elbow. We looked at each other and although it was too dark to see her face as I raised my eyebrows  and smiled, I felt her expression was the same. "Wow."

I watched through the screen past the rain fly to the outline of tree tops. I've always liked thunderstorms, or at least as long as I can remember. It was always a cozy feeling to be safe inside but still watch. I can also remember scampering-a lot more like running several miles-to escape a thunderstorm that stuck the top of Mt. Washburn while we were there. Now this felt a little different, especially since the thunder sounded a lot closer to the flashes.

It began to pour. Sometimes the thunder was so loud you could feel the ground shake underneath you. It rained and thundered for awhile, then it all rolled away. Daddy's voice hailed us from the other tent, "You girls all OK?" "Yes" our three voices answered.

 

We all went back to sleep. The next thing I knew a extremely bright light woke me again, only a few seconds later a loud crack. I lay next to my sister all stiff, eyes wide open. Then there was an even brighter flash, and I couldn't see anything. Only two seconds later a violent crack broke out. It rumbled so loud the ground shook. This was a little much. I started wondering about the medal poles in the tent and were there roots under us, and....

 

Then a bible verse came to mind and a bible story became so vivid.

Jesus in the boat in the storm. Daddy could always animate that story so well with all the sound effects, the waves tossed us in the boat, and so on. And even though we knew what was coming he always manage to scare us at least a little.

 

But the disciples with Jesus, they were about to die. And they would have. Except that...

 But can you imagine, tossed by the incredible violence of a storm bigger than you had ever seen, and you grew up on this lake.

 

And Jesus was sleeping. Yes sleeping through it. I can't imagine how he could have if the lighting was as bright and the thunder as loud as it was last night. Except for the fact that He trusted His Father perfectly. Because He knew that nothing outside of His Father's will would happen. And He knew His Father's will was best.

 

I rolled over and rested through the rest of the storm.





There's plenty of storms in life. Most are not physical thunder and lightning storms.

But the storms in the heart can be far more fearful then any storm on earth.

And Jesus asks us to trust. When He's in the storm with us there's nothing to fear.

Like Him we can perfectly trust. Because nothing outside of our Fathers will, will happen.

And our Fathers will is best, always best for us.