Hey Everyone!
I’d like you to meet one of the newest members to our Jubilee group! Cindy just joined us a few weeks ago and has written such a wonderful story to go along with today’s chapters! Today we were reading Psalms 57 – 59 which David wrote while in a cave, hiding from King Saul. Cindy has a pretty good idea of just what David may have been going through as she shares her own cave dwelling experience.
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy!
I look to you for protection.
I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings
until the danger passes by.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God who will fulfill his purpose for me. Psalm 57:1-2
The ice cold cave water was swirling around my chest in the inky blackness. How had I foolishly gotten myself and this hopeless situation? Here I was in a cave with a man I had only known for less than a month, we foolishly hadn’t told anyone where we were going (we just said we were going caving, not giving a single landmark to find our bloated bodies after we drowned).
We had been in this cave after a horrific rainstorm the night before, crawling on our bellies with headlamps, through icy cold wet rooms, hallways and waterfalls. All seemed fine until now, what was an exciting adventure was now going to be my death trap, drowning me to death, with a man I barely knew. What kind of fool was I?
Here I was at 27 years old, working as a nurse at a small mission hospital in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. I had become a new Christian a year ago, committing my life to Christ and what His plans were for me. I was planning on becoming a Nurse Practitioner and going into full time missions. These were not my plans nor in my future datebook!
What was God doing? How could I do His plans if I was about to drown? Neither of us could find our way out of this wet depressing tomb.
So… John and I decided to talk about death and dying, how we’re going to die (he was a medical student and I was a nurse), shared our hopes, goals, dreams and aspirations. We talked about our futures and if we ever married, what our families would be like. We told each other what to tell our parents if one of us survived…and we prayed and waited and waited.
The water never rose any higher than our chest and we eventually found our way out of that murky black hole on the side of a mountain. As we sloshed toward the pin hole size of light far ahead, I was so grateful for this “new life” I was experiencing, God was so good.
The opening now appeared larger and I could see the pale green shafts of sunlight filtering through the leaves as they spread diamond like sparkles on the pools of water in the stream. I was never so grateful to God nor to be alive!!
I also learned that my plans may not be the same as Gods plans. You see, John proposed to me a month after our near-death caving experience. Our sharing together our hopes and dreams along with other deep questions on life brought us closer than we bargained for in “just going caving.” Instead it truly was a “bonding experience.”
I’m sure David and his men, as they were hiding in the cave from Saul’s army were crying out to God in their desperation, yet, there is so much praise on David’s tongue, all in the same Psalm! I tell myself that is something I need to put into practice more and more. I still do have my “prayers of desperation” like my time in the cave where I thought I was staring death in the face. God had different plans and for me to fit in the orchestration of His timetable, not mine. My job is to say, Lord, your will be done no matter how desperate our circumstance may be, and to end it with praise for His plan and provision in our lives.
After all, that caving experience brought me the love of my life over 30 years ago!
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Thanks Cindy!
The journey so far through the Bible has been amazing! And women, like Cindy, are joining all the time!! If you’d like to join a wonderful, eclectic group of women from all over the world to read through the Bible this year, we’d love to have you!! Just click here and there will be someone there to welcome you to the group!
May’s Reading Plan is here!! WitW. May (1)
Till next time,
sue