4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. [Psalm 23:4-6]
When I was young, I used to go to a tanning salon…let me rephrase that…a very questionable shack connected to someone’s house with a tanning bed in it. The tanning bed worked fine, except for the timer. There was a chair in the room with a kitchen timer on it, and that was what was used so you didn’t spend too long in the “oven.” One time I arrived at the place, and no one was there, but the owner allowed people to just go in and use the tanning bed even if she wasn’t home. I didn’t usually use the timer, but I went ahead and cranked it over to 20 minutes before laying down. After a few minutes in the bed, my mind wandered to all sorts of thoughts, and before I knew it, I was sound asleep. A moment later, I woke to the obnoxious sound of the timer ringing two feet from my head. I have been thankful for years that I didn’t cook that day.
While I was in college, I drove an older car that had its share of issues, but it typically got me from point A to point B without much trouble. One Friday night, I had traveled about 300 miles to visit friends in another state, and when I returned on that Sunday, I made a couple of stops along the way for gas or snacks. When I returned to campus, I pulled into the driveway at my friend’s house and went inside to visit her and others that lived there. I went back out to the car to go to my dorm, and the car wouldn’t start. The starter had died. Though it wasn’t a cheap fix, I was thankful it didn’t quit on one of those stops during my travels.
The light went out, again.
When I was a sophomore in college, I had the opportunity to attend a May term in France for three weeks; it was a memorable trip in many ways. One incident I had wished to forget involved the motel where our group stayed and a rather immodest, indecent guest. A group of about six of us returned to the motel late one night and discovered a nude Frenchman wandering the halls. He seemed to have disappeared to his own room, we assumed, and then a couple of us went back into the hall to go use the showers, which had their own entrances from the hallway around the corner from our rooms. I was about to step into the shower when the light went out. Since it was late, I assumed that I had forgotten to lock the door; the showers were equipped with automatic lights that turned off after the door was unlocked for a number of seconds. After locking the door, I stepped into the shower and proceeded to lather up the bar of soap. The light went out, again. Realizing in a split second that the door was moving slowly open, I slammed my soapy body into it with all of my strength and relocked the door. I shouted repeatedly and stood there bracing the door, trembling but determined that it would not open again. After several minutes of shouting, I dressed in every piece of clothing I had in there with me, and finally built up the nerve to return to the room that I shared with two other girls on the trip. No one was in the hallway as I ran to the room and fumbled with the keypad to gain access inside. I was a sight, my hair still dripping and my clothes clinging to my soap-covered body. My friends looked at me and said, “What’s wrong?” I explained what had happened, and one of them said that she had entered the shower next door to mine, but had returned to the room to get something, and saw the nude man wandering the hall again, so she decided not to shower that night. I was just thankful that I returned safely to the room unscathed.
…without my faith, those other events could have destroyed me…
Many difficult situations have arisen in my life, and I have had to face them like everyone else has. The incidents that I have written about here turned out much better than they could have, and like I said, not all of my life events have had such desirable results. The point is, without my faith, those other events could have destroyed me, as could these had they turned out differently. I am thankful to be here today to share my stories and what I have learned. Please share something you have learned from an event in your life in the comments.