Scared Straight

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for thou art with me,”

Psalm 23:4

“I thought life was supposed to become easy when I became a Christian,” I banged the dishes on the table.

Granny never looked up from her sewing. “Why would you think that, haven’t you read the Bible?” Granny always answered my questions with a question.

“So what’s the point?” I asked. My mature wisdom at twelve even impressed me.

Granny stopped her quilting and put her small wrinkled hand on mine. “Hon, being a Christian isn’t about how we feel, it’s about what we believe.”

“Got it?”

Granny’s words rambled through my mind all night. Tossing and turning, in my dreams, I ran from a hole that threaten to swallow me up. I woke up in a sweat the next morning.

Had my dream been an omen?

That week started like any other week for a sixth grader, school, band practice, and homework.

“Do you believe God is real?” I asked my best friend on the bus.

“Of course He’s real,” Katie said. “Why wouldn’t you believe He’s real?”

I didn’t know why, but I always felt alone. That’s why I didn’t think God was real. But I could never tell anyone how I felt, not even my best friend.

That evening the wind blew stronger than usual. The sky turned a green cabbage soup color that I had never seen before. My father paced the kitchen floor until Mama sent him outside. Something felt oddly out of place and a deafening hush fell over our woods.

I had never experience silence until that night.

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” Daddy ran inside toward the hallway knocking down the chairs tucked under the kitchen table.

The silence disappeared.

A terrifying howl paralyzed me. The ground heaved, our home shuttered, and groaned. I remembered my dream and thought about the hole swallowing us up. A sharp crack of lightening and a splitting explosion threw me from the couch. Making it to the hallway, I looked back at the home I loved.

Will I ever see it or my family again? I wondered.

Mama screamed, my little sister cried, and Daddy moaned words I couldn’t understand. Our house became a living creature moving, inhaling, exhaling, trembling beneath the monster of air. Psalm 23 began to play over and over in my head. I repeated it out loud. I said the Lord’s Prayer, I cried out to God to make it all stop.

And suddenly it did.

The storm destroyed most of our farm, but my family was alive. I silently thanked God and vowed never to take our relationship for granted again. God had answered my prayers that dreadful night and I never doubted his existence again.