Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. Psalm 77:19

Tough situations in life often leave us with a great story to tell.

As a college and young adult person I hated negative events that popped up in life: having an unexpected flat tire, running across campus in a sudden downpour and having to sit through class a muddy mess, getting lost in a strange city causing me to run late to an important interview, those type things. My goal as a young adult was to avoid all “bad” and ” difficult” circumstances. I know. I was very naive. You can’t expect to have only sunshine and roses in life.

A particular event my last year of college helped me change this “difficulty avoidance” I embraced. My brand new husband, Randy, and I headed out for a picnic to a local lake because we were a broke, college, married couple, and for cheap entertainment you could eat sandwiches out in nature just as well as you could at home. About 7:00 p.m., after a long summer’s day of swimming, picnicking, and fishing, we were looking for a small adventure to complete our outing. We got the park map and saw a road the led to the earthen dam which had been built to create this lake. It sounded like something worth of a brief exploration, and it was on the road out of the park, so we packed up our gear and headed that way.

We found the turn off and drove down the rutted, dirt/clay road to the dam. It was very anti-climactic! Disappointment. It looked like any other bank of the lake; there was no real view of the dam itself. Within 5 minutes we were back in the car to head out.

I neglected to say that it had rained all through the night before this picnic adventure. I did say it was a rutted road and a clay road. I also neglected to say this dam was at the bottom of a long, somewhat steep grade. As my husband started up the first bit of incline in the road our tires spun a bit. He kept trying and spinning for a minute, then realized he probably needed to back up to a flatter place and get a running go at The Hill. Second and third try had the same basic result – either tires would spin or we’d run into one of the deep ruts and get stuck and have to back down The Hill to get out. It was then that fear came creeping in.

It was getting late. The sun was setting. The park closed at sundown. No one knew we were here. And yes, it was The Time Before Cell Phones! We were alone, left to our own devices to get out of this one.

I would like to say we prayed and were at peace and God provided a way out, but that is not the true story. We were getting more and more anxious, didn’t think to pray, and felt we had to figure this one out. More than just providing a way out, God provided a lesson we’ve never forgotten.

We walked up and down The Hill a couple of times examining the possibilities. My hubby thought he might be able to get more traction if he drove very close to the roadside near the trees where there were more leaves, sticks, and rocks. We were hopeful, this fourth try looked promising. We backed down to the flat place, revved the engine, took off along the edge of the road… started spinning and fell into a rut again. Stovalls = 0  The Hill = 4. The anxiety was growing because it was getting darker as the sun fell lower behind the trees.

Being the engineer that he is, Randy realized we had to deal with 2 problems: getting traction and staying out of the many long, deep ruts. So his proposal was we spend the next hour before total darkness dragging fallen branches and sticks and rocks from the woods to fill in the ruts and strew across the lengthy, slick patches of wet clay road. It would take most all the daylight we had left and leave us with only one shot to get up The Hill to safety. Failure would mean spending the night in the car. Alone. No food. No water. No restroom. No one knowing where we were.

I was skeptical and a nervous wreck by this time and fully into my usual line of negative second-guessing. Why did we ever think this was an adventure we should try? But what alternative was there? I couldn’t think of anything else, so we set about patching up the road up the hill. I can’t even tell you how long this took. It seemed like an eternity. But finally we had all the deepest ruts and slickest spots patched up with debris.

My husband thought he would be more daring to floor it and weave and dodge ruts up the The Hill. So he appointed me to be something similar to those air port signal men. (I had to look it up, but they are called aircraft marshallers.) My job was to stand a couple of hundred yards ahead of him at the top of The Hill and use arm motions to direct him left or right to try to keep him away from the deepest ruts and slickest spaces, since we didn’t know if our patching would be completely helpful.

I climbed The Hill. He backed down to the bottom. at the shout of “1-2-3 Now!” he gunned it and took off my way. The plan was to floor the car up The Hill steering left and right like a madman by my directions, zooming toward me, and I was to jump out of the way at the last minute after he passed the last worst place in the road. I know. It sounds reckless. I would kill my young adult kids for trying such a stunt. But as they say, Necessity is the mother of invention! And those inventions aren’t always safe.

With much adrenalin, racing pulse, and sheer terror on my part, we worked our plan. Randy came weaving towards me at 45+ mph up The Hill. My arms flailed left and right directing him just in the nick of time away from this rut or that slick spot. He was getting really close, really quick. As he passed the final deep rut, I jumped left and he barreled on by me. It worked! We did it! He stopped on level ground a few yards away and I ran and jumped in the car.

We squealed! We laughed! We cried! We shouted, “I can’t believe it worked!” a few dozen times. All was well. After catching our breath and allowing the adrenalin to settle a bit, we drove home in the dark talking over the days’ events. One of us commented, “This is gonna make a great story one day.”

For the rest of our lives, when troubles come or sad, scary or horrible things happen, one of us will say, “This is gonna make a great story one day.” Our kids have even picked it up from hearing us say it at family outings that turned tragic in the moment.

So what is the point of my long story?

Our pastor says, “We are always are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to head into a storm.” Trials will come ladies. They can wreck us or we can realize God allowed them as part of our story, and one day we will relish telling even the scary or sad parts of our story – once we have allowed Him to teach us through them and heal our hearts.

David’s song of praise in 2 Samuel 22 provides us with sweet reminders as we face struggles and trying times. (v. 2-37)

by Guest Author Jan Muir Peine (Check out her website here.)

I have had a secret for 35 years, but God now wants it shared for His Glory. I pray you will be blessed by this incredible true story.

Flash back to 1985.

I was a vocational evaluator at a local Rehab facility when a young 16-year-old male was assigned to me. Several things pierced my heart about this boy; the least of which was his malformed right upper limb which I assumed was likely from his pregnant mother’s usage of Thalidomide as a means to stop miscarriage. The technical name of his unfortunate condition is phocomelia, but the result was he only had the usage of his left arm. In addition, he was without parents, the result of a very tragic, life-ending event that he witnessed as a 7-year-old child. Could my heart break any more for this troubled teen?

He was sponsored by the State of Alabama, and my testing revealed that he was quite gifted. But as any teen, he wanted to look “normal.” He repeatedly requested a cosmetically pleasing prosthesis, in lieu of the metal hook that the state approved for his missing right limb. I was burdened; so much so that I began to pray for him. In my prayer, God placed it on my heart that my husband and I were to provide him with the more expensive cosmetic arm; an investment into his future. But how, God?

I had just sustained a huge pay cut from my sudden career change secondary to our own car wreck. We had a two-year-old daughter, and my recovery from the skull fracture I sustained in the wreck was not inexpensive. But when God calls you to obedience, he provides the means for you to obey. We donated the money to a charitable organization and insisted it be anonymous. We also insisted that he be given a Bible with his new prosthesis. I inscribed it. As per our instructions, he was simply told that he had been “gifted” with the items. He was overwhelmed with gratitude.

Flash forward to last Thursday when I received a call from a potential buyer for my deceased daddy’s “Jazzy Scooter,” which had remained in my mom’s garage since Daddy’s death.

My caller was a church organist from Childersburg, and he wanted to come immediately, which involved about a 2-hour drive to my mom’s farm. He said he was bringing a friend to help him transport it home if he bought it. When I saw the now 51-year-old, one-armed male, something clicked in my brain.

“It’s him,” I thought to myself. Surely not; what would be the odds? So I asked him if he had been tested at a Birmingham rehab center when he was 16. He affirmed. I asked him if he received a Bible with his cosmetic prosthesis. He looked puzzled, clearly didn’t remember me, but again affirmed.

I said, “Did the inscription in the Bible say something like, “God loves you and so do we.” He froze.

“How could you know that?” he asked in amazement.

“Because I’m the lady who wrote it.”

“Then you’re the lady who gave me the cosmetic arm? I never knew.”

“Yes,” I told him.

He asked, “Why would you do that for me?”

I told him that God had always been watching over him, and while earthly people had let him down, his heavenly Father never would. Needless to say, we were all three touched by this reunion.

He marveled, “It’s a small world.”

I responded, “Nope, it’s a very big world, but we have a bigger God who connects the dots for all of us within His own timing, even after 35 years!”

We decided together to share our story. And yes… they got Daddy’s scooter!

He is faithful always!

For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. Psalm 33:4

Thank you Jan for sharing your amazing story!

On a vacation to the beautiful mountains of Virginia our family experienced one of our That-will-make-a-great-story-one-day events. It will require another blog post to fully explain that phrase, but suffice it to say, those are unexpected events that seem sad, scary, or horrible at the time, but we come to relish telling the story over and over as the years go by.

This particular That-will-make-a-great-story-one-day event started out, as they all do, with a normal day. From our cozy, rental cabin in Virginia just off the Blue Ridge Parkway the six of us had set off that morning to visit Virginia’s Natural Bridge and surrounding outdoorsy tourist attractions. The day was great fun. The 4 kids were between the ages of 6 and 16, so they were independent and adventurous. We hiked and took photos, read historical markers, and marveled over the rainbow trout in the crystal clear creek that runs under the this non-manmade bridge.

Natural Bridge Virginia truly is a national wonder. This solid rock bridge fashioned by Our Creator and the forces of nature He set in place is so big, thick, and strong that the traffic of US Highway 11 crosses this bridge, though an uninformed traveler might not realize it. The 215 foot high limestone bridge was once owned by Thomas Jefferson, and you can even see one place where George Washington carved his initials on the wall of the canyon.

We went from the Park to a wax museum of historical people, and then drove to the James River for a picnic. After a late afternoon meal and lots of playing and hiking we headed back to our home-away-from-home. We passed through several small communities with only a flashing light and a couple of stores and were climbing back into the Blue Ridge Mountains by a different road than we had come. Since it was dusk, we planned to cross the mountains here and travel a 4-lane highway north along the other side of the mountains back to the turn off was for our cabin.

Less than a mile up the foothills, I looked down at our gas gauge. It was just short of the big red E – Empty! (This is not uncommon for me, so the whole family was giving me a hard time.) I quickly found a scenic pull off where I could turn around. The kids were a little nervous we wouldn’t make it back to get gas, but dad assured them he’d seen a gas station at the last little community we’d been through and that he was pretty sure we could coast to it if we ran out of gas.

Sure enough, we made it safely to the gas station – without having to coast in. We filled up and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, weary from a fun-filled day and the moment of fear and just ready to be “home.” I was still driving. What else could go wrong? I’d already nearly run us out of gas.

The sun had fully set by now, so I turned on the headlights as we headed back up the mountain. At nearly the same place where I had discovered we were low on fuel, trouble hit again. It was as if we had run into a gray wall. In just those few short minutes it had
taken us to go get gas, a cloud had descended over the mountain. The fog was the thickest I had ever seen. We pulled off at a scenic overlook again, this time to get out the car handbook and figure out how to turn on the fog lights. After a little digging the fog lights were working and we thought we’d be on our way.

The fog lights did little to help our situation. We were completely engulfed by heavy fog to the point that I struggled to see the painted lines to stay in my lane and on the road. We were ascending the mountain, so the fog seemed to get thicker. The kids were giving us the whimpering “Mommy? Daddy?” voices, while we adults were debating the risk of keeping on driving versus the risk of trying to turn around when we couldn’t see. I slowed to under 15mph and still struggled. It got so blindingly gray that I slowed down even more and my husband, in the passenger seat, opened his door and watched the white line on the edge of the pavement as I drove to make sure I didn’t run off the road.

The short trip over the mountains, turned into over an hour of anxious driving before we crossed the peak and got far enough down the other side that we drove out of the fog bank just as suddenly as we had entered it. Relief filled the car as the danger faded behind us.

How often do we experience the spiritual version of this? We suddenly hit a spiritual fog bank that obscures our vision. Even right now in the US as we navigate through the unknown fog of COVID-19, rioting, racial tension, and political bickering I feel as if I’m in a spiritual fog. There have been several times these last few weeks that I have felt I needed help finding the white line and staying on the road. What are we to do walking blindly through this fog?

1. Stay in our lane. Keeping our eyes on the lines to stay in our lane spiritually means to be in God’s Word daily – as often as possible. The Psalms, all the wisdom books, Paul’s letters with comments on how to live and how to treat others, and the stories of the Old Testament that teach us about God and about people are crucial to read and know to stay in our lane. Once we’ve read them, then it is our job to live out the truths scripture teaches.
2. Have someone in the passenger seat helping you. The old “Jesus is my co-pilot” phrase is really not a bad one. Some people say no, that we should let God be at the wheel. But all through scripture I see God giving people a job to do and then allowing them to do it. He’s always there directing and strengthening, but I don’t see Him driving so much. So make sure you are praying and in tune with the Holy Spirit and His direction as you navigate the dense fogs of life.
3. Don’t let the fear and confusion blind you. Our emotions can ruin us if we trust them and follow them. We must trust our Heavenly Father over our feelings. Philippians 4:8 tells us, “ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” When our mind thinks on those kinds of thoughts, the emotions of fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, confusion, pessimism, envy, and such fade away. Proper thinking frees us to see clearly through God’s eyes in those sudden times of turmoil.
4. Trust the Light of the World to guide your through. God will be that guiding light in every situation. Are we focused enough to listen for His still, small voice that whispers, “Don’t type that post,” “Don’t say what you want to,” “Don’t take offense at that even though they meant to try to offend you,” “Forgive.” “Trust.” “Love.” At times the voice will be so quiet it will be like my lights in that fog bank, it will seem not to help much at the moment. We will find ourselves longing for a quick fix or retribution. That’s when we choose to follow the Light of the World even at what seems to be our own expense. He will get us through to the other side of that scary mountain. Trust Him.

When I was younger my Aunt Sis was notorious for her plants,

“I put ‘em in the ground and then after that they’re on their own.” 

We were standing in her yard across from my Mam-maw’s house, I was maybe thirteen. She had flower beds and shrubs of nearly every variety of the annual variety, hence the vowing of independence she spoke over her plant life. As she dug in the ground and planted she would teach me the difference between a Japanese Iris and a standard Iris. She had gobs of Irises and buttercups. She would thin out and redistribute those tubers because,

 “They [Irisis] don’t do as well all bunched up together.” 

My Mama had less gardening time in her younger years and in mine, but did have an uncanny ability to call a botany kind of roll. As we drove down the road or passed patches of wildflowers she would point out Queen Anne’s Lace, Oak Leaf Hydrangeas, Trumpet Vines, and Tiger Lilies also known as “Ditch Lilies.” We would occasionally go to the Leath’s Greenhouse (and I honestly thought it was Leaf’s Greenhouse because that made sense in my head) and she would name marigolds, zinnias, Asteraceae, daisies, (Shasta Daisy’s were her sister Margaret’s favorite.)

I learned to recognize the frequent and familiar. Azaleas were a familiar and over time I have come to love a wild azalea more so than a not wild azalea, the distinction was never given to me but I can recognize the difference in the two varieties. The wild azalea has a large open bloom, they tend to be pale pastel in color, and  in my imagination look like little floppy hats perched on the ends of the branches. 

I am much like Mama and now I do the same. My children show about as little interest as I did back then and I figure perhaps that limited knowledge of roadside plants is somewhere taking root on their memories. 

Nowadays mama and I will ride down the road and have a ten minute conversation about it being too early for ditch lilies and not soon enough for the Shasta Daisies. Tiger Lillies always bloom “during Vacation Bible School time” Mama said, “they just seem too early to be blooming right now.” I agreed as we drove on and thought maybe time was passing by at breakneck speed or perhaps the mild winter could account for their early bloom. 

When we stopped the car and made our way down a steep embankment to a gorge that opened with a waterfall on the left and a creekbed of rapids on the right we both were taken aback by the sheer beauty of it. The hike down had been as Mama declared “treacherous.” I had almost abandoned the mission as the Martin 3, my 11-year-old niece, Mama, and I scrambled and scooted our ways to the bottom. I was glad that I had not abandoned the mission before we were able to see the beauty before us. 

As the younger members of our party played, mama and I sat in amazement of the green lush and the cool and shade made by the rock overhangs. We pointed out particularly fascinating or eye catching things to one another. We sat on rocks and fallen trees, we picked up rocks shaped like things, a perfect isosceles triangle, a unicorn horn, a heart. The water was cold, ice cold and the rocks not nearly as slick as some creek rocks with which were familiar. The falls rumbled and roared so we had to talk louder than normal, yet in the midst of it all was such a peacefulness. 

“Look at that.” She pointed to our left and above us, there was what appeared to be a beautifully blooming wild azalea suspended over the water. We determined we could not definitively call it an azalea because while the blooms looked that way, a bush it was not. It  was more spindly and vine like and hung upside down growing toward the water, rooted in the rock cliff. I wondered out loud if it had been a recent storm victim having been pushed down by violent winds and left to die uprooted, tangled and hanging inverted. Mama said she didn’t think so and as we sat some more and hiked a bit more I realized that it would’ve looked deader had that been the case. 

“How do you reckon that even happens?” Mama was a few steps ahead of me. She paused and said, “I guess when you’re a little acorn and you take root, you don’t really pay attention to the direction.” I thought about that and how despite the circumstances, the odds unfavorable to that suspended plant it continued to thrive and that perhaps its longing for water, thirst for the essential, superseded what seemed the likely, reasonable, or even possible direction of growth. 

I determined I want to be like that unlikely upturned beauty. So desperate for water, Living Water, that I am willing to defy the rules dictated to me to achieve such beautiful growth. Clinging so closely to the Living Water that I am hardly aware of the anxiety producing circumstances around me. I want to cling so closely to Christ that I am hardly moved when the storms of life do their best to tear me down.  

Celebrate!

Swim.

Laugh.

Grill out.

Watch some fireworks.

Make homemade ice cream.

Sing The Star Spangled Banner.

Enjoy time with friends or family.

Be kind and generous with a stranger.

Show Christ’s love and share His Good News with anyone you come in contact with.

And allow yourself to exchange your fear and anger for the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control the Holy Spirit gives.