BETWEEN forty and fifty years ago two girls, Jennie and Becky, started one afternoon to visit some friends living in the country, four miles from Jennie’s home.
Becky knew the way and Jennie’s mother had entrusted her to Becky’s care.
While they were going through some woods on the way, evening came on and it grew dark. The girls lost the path and all their searching to find it again was in vain.
Jennie thought of the stories she had heard about people getting lost in the woods, and she became quite frightened. She had heard that when people are lost they go round and round in a circle and come back to the place from which they start. So she did not know how they could find their way out, and feared they would have to stay there all night.
Becky, too, was frightened and troubled, for she was older and felt responsible for their safety.
While their minds were thus filled with fear, the moon suddenly appeared from behind the clouds and shed her silver beams about them. Soon Becky exclaimed: “Oh, I have found the path!”
Then Jennie remembered that verse in Proverbs 24:1010If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. (Proverbs 24:10): “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
When we are in trouble and do not know which way to turn, or what to do, God does not want us to be frightened and faint-hearted. He wants us to turn to Him and ask for health and strength.
When the girls were lost, God graciously allowed the moon to come out and make it light enough for them to see the path, and He is just as able to help us, whatever our trouble may be.
If we do not look to Him we faint because our strength is small, but if we trust Him, He gives us strength and we do not faint.
ML 07/19/1903