I asked Bay to hang this picture ⇡ at Gramma Dottie’s little house a week or so ago. There just wasn’t a spot at my house; so, now it will showcase a wall in her bedroom.
It spent a number of years at Aunt Grace’s house, then came home to me not too long ago.
With the cross-stitch comes a memory.
With the memory comes a strong emotion of high-anxiety, bordering on fear.
I’ll share the back-story.
Bay and I had been serving in Kenya at Rift Valley Academy for 7 months.
He was off on a basketball-playing-missions-trip with some of our dorm boys and a few other students, who lived in Zimbabwe.
It was April, everyone was on vacation, and I was manning the home-front with the three kiddos.
I don’t remember the date; I just remember the sequence of events.
The kids had been put to bed.
So, the time must have been close to 9:00 PM.
Rainy season had arrived, and that night, the rain was coming down in sheets.
The noise on the metal roof of our home was deafening.
But, I sat listening, and occupying my time with the cross stitch that I’d been working on for about four months.
The last thing I needed to finish was the border, and I was at least three-quarters of the way around.
The telephone rang – the one (we had two telephones) that indicated the call was coming from on-station somewhere.
I could barely make out the voice on the other end, since it was raining so hard, but finally I got the message.
My heart broke.
The school administrators had just gotten word that one of the boys, a student from Zambia, had been killed in a freak accident as he and his father were boating down the Zambezi River.
The waters were at flood stage.
Somehow the boat had overturned, and the young man swam to one side of the river, while the dad and a friend swam to the other side.
As they were attempting to rescue items from the boat close to shore in very shallow water, the friend noticed a swirl in the water that indicated a crocodile had changed directions.
He yelled at our young student (no more than 16 years old) to get out of the water…and the boy indicated he heard, but was picking up just one last item.
That was all it took for the crocodile to sweep his feet out from under him, so very close to shore…and take him under.
As I hung up the phone with tears streaming, I felt a strange wet sensation around my ankles.
The rains had begun flooding around our little home that sat down in a bit of a ravine, and were rushing underneath the front door.
I quickly began picking items up that I could get off the floor, in order to protect them…but in the process, the cross-stitch I’d been working on got splashed with mud (yes, those spots are still there, faded, but present).
No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t come clean.
Some concerned neighbors showed up on my doorstep, and soon we were sweeping the flood waters out the back door as quickly as they entered the front door.
By midnight the rain stopped, and the flooding in our house got under control.
Needless to say, the parquet flooring needed re-sanding and re-finishing, but it could have been so much worse.
As I climbed into bed that night, the reality of the unpredictable world we live in struck me with a force I had not reconciled prior.
I recognized how truly “out of control” life can be from one day to the next – really, from one minute to the next. And, that night the fears began to rise and rush around my heart like the flood waters of the Zambezi….or the rain waters that flowed through my home just minutes before.
I, the “missionary,” who knew without question I had been called by the Lord to Kenya, felt the fear of being. “out of control.”
In fact, psychological researchers say that’s the number one issue behind most fears (it rather helps knowing we’re not alone, right?)…
Because I wasn’t sleeping anyway after all the night’s events, I turned the light on by my bed, and reached for my Bible.
That morning, I closed it at the end of Isaiah 25.
During the day I had reflected on the promises of God in that chapter that He would swallow up death forever, and wipe away tears.
It was as if the Lord prepared me in advance for the unexpected…
Those promises came washing over me afresh, as I thanked Him for our young student’s personal knowledge of The Almighty One and the saving GRACE that landed him that afternoon, not at the bottom of a raging river, but in the Presence of His God.
What joy he was experiencing, even while we felt the loss and the grief…
“BUT,” I asked the Lord, “what about fear?”
“What do you do about the unrest in my heart?”
And, I started reading in Isaiah 26.
There was God’s answer to me, verse 3.
It is, now, a familiar go-to promise…every time anxiety rises.
I wrote it down in my journal this way (I still have those journals…):
Peace comes as I reflect on my Savior.
I thought about that cross-stitch in the other room.
Each name is a treasure trove about the character of my God.
In timely fashion, and no coincidence, I finished that little piece of stitching just when I needed it most.
I began repeating who my God is to me…and found God faithful to do what He promised.
The peace of God washed afresh over my troubled soul…and I knew, while God wouldn’t change circumstances, God wouldn’t change.
He is forever who He says He is.
My God does not change.
May this little story remind you, to “stay your mind” and “settle your heart” as you focus on His reliable, ever faithful nature.
Turn your eyes on Jesus….
