He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows,
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
During the Vietnam war, my husband was on the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier in the US Navy. As they were loading munitions onto the planes, an unforeseen accident happened. As a result, missiles and bombs that were supposed to be loaded onto the airplanes exploded. Flames erupted, shrapnel and metal portions of the planes flew in all directions. Men were trapped inside the planes, on the flight deck, in the hanger bay and underneath on the decks which housed the men in sleeping quarters. The damage was extensive. Smaller ships moved in to assist the sailors who had jumped overboard or who had been blown overboard by the force of the explosion. The men in the living quarters just below the flight deck didn't have a chance to even say their last prayers... the men on the flight deck who died when the bombs and missiles exploded didn't have a chance...
Though men were stationed all over the ship, every man alive knew the sound of a bomb exploding. As the alarms sounded, the men who were able ran for their stations. My husband was a signalman. His job was to communicate with other ships through Morse Code. As he ran for his post, he stumbled over bloodied and battered bodies, he heard moans and cries of the wounded; he saw men holding bombs in their arms trying to throw them overboard. He has images of death and destruction that he carries with him today.
My husband was not a believer at the time but had attended church as a child and teenager with his family. Yet, the only thing he could think of as all of this was happening... and in the hours that followed was, "The Lord's Prayer" and "The 23 Psalm." He told me he repeated those over and over again.
It is amazing how we know that God is really our only source of comfort. Other people can try to ease our pain, but God is the only one who can touch the deepest part of our inner being, our soul. I have found this to be true so many times.
I am grateful for the people God has brought into my life to help show me who He is. Oh, how I I love Him! He is there.... even in our darkest hours...
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