As we stood in front of the large screen TV in the conference room, I was simply stunned and amazed. Without fail, each time I have a Women in Christian Media event, there are severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes in my area. Rain pours. Trees come down. Streets flood. Trucks overturn and back up traffic for hours and on and on.
As the chief-in-charge of the event, my cell phone began ringing off the hook about 3 hours before the event’s start time. All of the attendees who were to come were calling, multiple times and texting.
“Is it still on?”, “I’m not sure where I am. Can you help me?” “The sirens are going off here.” “What are we going to do?” “I’m not coming.” And so the calls went steadily for three hours.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine (not a person of faith by any means) who was monitoring the weather system with me on the TV, was watching me field calls and texts at a frantic pace. And listening as caller after caller kept canceling. At one point he stopped and said, “Isn’t your event a Christian thing? Aren’t they supposed to have ‘faith’?” I was stumped. He was right. I certainly did not want any of my girls to place themselves in harms way, but he had me there.
I knew others would make the trek regardless, as they were driving in from other states. I had to be there for whoever showed up. I knew I had to keep moving forward. But his words haunted me.
I was sharing with a family member, before all the chaos ensued, about how this situation always happens. The bad weather hits about 3-4 hours before our event’s start time. Once the event begin, the weather is usually fine. The day before the event is always nice, and the day after is dandy too. What’s a girl to do?!
It was when her reply email came, containing the perfect verse for the evening, just about the time I was going to be heading out the door, that set my heart free.
“We were watching the Weather Channel today… and one of us said ‘Nashville is going to have really bad weather tonight’. Grandma said, ‘We will have to pray that everyone gets there safely and back’. So, whatever happens, you know we are praying. Ps 121: 8 … The Lord will protect your coming in and going out!”
It was then I knew I was on the right track. Steady as she goes. And so off I went. But it was the follow up email that came to me this morning that really hit home. She told me the story behind how that verse came to be special to her and her husband.
“When we were living in California (we were in our 30’s), my husband was having a hard time trying to decide whether to take a job offer in Tiajuana, Mexico (an American company). He wrestled with it for days and told me he had to make a decision soon. The day before he had to give them his final answer, I had a dream and the dream was a certain Psalm but when I woke up in the morning, I couldn’t remember what Psalm it was. He was leaving to go to work and thought he would probably turn the offer down since he had been advised of the danger of working in Mexico; being stopped every night at the border crossing, etc. I told him to wait a minute while I tried to find the verse I dreamed about. It was so funny… him standing there while I flipped page after page. Finally I found it. It was Psalm 121!! The last verse: I will protect you as you go in and go out. That meant to my husband that God was telling him to take the job and that He would protect his going and coming.”
That’s a Christian thing. Nuff said.
S.
