God IS Our Protector

(Hope you all enjoy the post. Sorry....I can't get my paragraphs to work. I have tried to fix it several times!! So, I think, unless I can keep working on it, you will have to handle this post this way for now!)

As many of you know, we went camping over Mother's Day weekend. Mom really likes to do that, and since we are to honor her, we honor her request. Going to Bruneau is the easiest place to go; it's only about an hour and a half from the house. Plus, since it is in the desert, we can only go there in April and May. (The mosquitoes are terrible in the summer!)

The weekend started out great. The guys went fishing a lot. Mom and I read books and I worked on my editorial some more. If you don't think we had family time, we did. It took us all weekend to play one round of Pinochle. I have never had that happen before!

Well, our family wanted to go hiking up the big sand dune. It has always looked fun to climb, but we finally set to tackling it this year. Now, as I said the mosquitoes get bad, so we opted to start hiking in the evening, around sunset. Garrity had done the hike before, and he said it was only going to take an hour. So, we didn't think there would be an issue. We were in for a surprise.

It took us longer to get up the dune than we thought. But it was a great view, with the sunset and everything! Then, instead of walking the way we had come, we decided to walk the spine of the dune until the end of it. However, it was getting dark fast. By the time we got to where the "trail" ended, it was dark....and we couldn't find the way we needed to take. Oh, did I mention that we didn't have a flashlight? We were stranded; we knew where we had to go, but we couldn't get there. We tried to find a way around water, but to no avail. Finally, Dad determined that we had to go back the way we had come. That meant we had to hike the dune again.

Now, we were all tired, it was about 11 at night, and our bodies were just aching (that's not including our parched throats.) We were without a flashlight, there wasn't a moon, and I could hear coyotes in the distance. I paint a dreary picture, don't I? Well, we totally realized that we couldn't make it back to the car apart from the Lord...so we prayed A LOT!!!! We also had to stick together as a family, trusting that Dad knew he would get us back to where we needed to be and not lose the other members of the family.

Amazingly, I wasn't too scared. I didn't like the prospects of sleeping out on the dune; I wanted to get back to the safety of my camper. However, I kept looking up in the sky, and I kept seeing this one bright star. Every time I did, I felt encouraged for some reason. I just felt the Lord was right by my side; He knew the number of the stars, surely He knew where I was. Plus, I was always by my dad. All of the books I am reading talk about girls being in submission to their fathers, trusting them and believing them. I think played a big part too.

Well, after plenty of stops to catch our breath, not to mention plenty of prayers and uplifting songs, we made it back to the truck at 12:15 Mother's Day morning. We all praised the Lord that we got back safely!! It could have been a lot worse. And God, in His amazing mercy, didn't let bad weather (by this, I mean wind) pick up until we were back at our camping spot.

I learned a lot while on this camping trip. I learned 1.) that God is ALWAYS watching over me, 2.) good family cooperation is absolutely vital, and 3.) when you go for a hike at sunset, make sure to carry a flashlight. :-) Truly, this Mother's Day weekend camping trip was one we'll never forget!!