Answer 4 Babe in the Woods
As I narrate these answers to prayer or providential
blessings, some of what I consider to be the best evidences of God’s love
are ones that I can not relate least they cause embarrassment or leave
the wrong impression. This is unfortunate, but God often blesses in the
most intimate personal manner that is unsuitable for public testimony.
Part of this next answer fits into that category.
I love nature, the woods and mountains, fields, streams,
and lakes, for they speak of the love and nurture of the Lord. Sevilla
and I were living near Rogersville, Tennessee, North of the Clinch mountain,
seventeen miles from town. Behind our home were several miles of heavily
forested mountains, ravines and creeks.
During the winter months, when the leaves are off the
trees, we could see Clinch mountain, just two miles south of our home,
the location of some of louis L’Amore’s novels.
Late one summer evening, I wondered down the forest
service road that penetrated into the mountains behind our home for some
quiet and solitary meditation. Finding a hillside, less then a quarter
mile from the house, I ascended about a hundred feet from the trail, which
was partially hidden by trees and sat down to pray and think.
As the light gradually left the sky and night came
on apace, I kept one eye on the road which rally wasn’t difficult as I
only have one eye that works. At the last moment, as the night shadows
were thickening around me, I bestirred myself, rose and headed down hill
to the road to walk the quarter mile back to our house only to discover
that I had been watching the wrong area. Gazing at a briar patch where
the road ought to have been, I swiveled my head in all directions but was
unable to see the road.
I had a problem. Literally, in less then sixty seconds,
the last light would be gone and I didn’t have time to flounder through
the briars in search of the elusive road home. Although I was less then
a quarter mile from home, due to the mountain and forest, I could not see
it. I was also slightly disoriented. Not relishing the prospect of spending
the night in the woods, I really did want to find the road. Rally I did!
There are times when God’s answer may be delayed days,
months, or even years, but such was not the case that evening. The instant
I cried for help, and the use of the word, cry, isn’t an exaggeration,
my eye was caught by the sight of a firefly and just beyond the firefly
was an old junk car. Instantly, I knew where I was with relationship to
the car As it turned out, I had to flounder through the briars as they
lay between me and the car but I reached the road as the darkness of night
settled about the forest.
Looking up to the sky, which was slightly lighter then
the trees on either side of the path, I used this thin ribbon to thread
my way back home in about fifteen miles.
Praise the Lord!
While not life threatening, this experience, which
was a result of my own careless negligence illustrates the protective care
and guidance that God exercises over his children. We are precious to the
Savior. He guards our every footstep and when we do stupid things, he will
often, although not always, preserve our goings fourth.