Our Place of Refuge

November 8^th 2012

Today is the calm after the storms. I’m looking once again down Ocean Pathway amid storm destruction and debris. The ocean is now calm and a slate blue against the gray sky. My mind is reviewing the events of the past 2 weeks, as I watch a sailboat sailing past. The first one I have seen since the devastating storm which has hit the Jersey Shore. It was my intention to write a blog and share a story about our place of refuge and shelter before Hurricane Sandy ever approached. It is an even more meaningful story now. My thoughts had been on scriptures which tell us that the Lord is our place of refuge, a place of shelter from the storms of life.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

       Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,

My God in whom I trust.”

                                           Psalm 91:1 NASB

Do we put our trust in Him when the storms of life hit? Is He our refuge and fortress when the fierce winds come?

It has been less than two weeks since Sandy made landfall on our coastline and we have been hit with yet another Nor’Easter! This one brought snow last night! How strange to awaken to snow laden trees which still have autumn leaves clinging. I looked down upon tent cabins with snow covered roofs and remembered once again the events the Lord brought to my mind in June. This is when I first came to the attic room where I now sit.

November 19th, 2012 

It was in the 1970’s when I summered in a tent here in Ocean Grove. The winter had come and there was a freshly fallen snow upon the ground one Sunday. A friend and I decided to go and see our tent cabin in the snow. Back in those days the streets of Ocean Grove were closed to traffic on a Sunday. We parked the car in Asbury Park and ventured over the foot bridge into Ocean Grove. The snow was still falling and I still remember the crunch of the snow under our boots and the silence and peacefulness of the evening. It was nightfall and the light streaming through the windows of Victorian houses had cast a glow upon the snow covered ground. We were so moved by the Spirit of the Lord that we decided to go on a prayer walk, praying for the future of Ocean Grove, for ministry and for the spreading of the gospel. My attention was drawn to a certain house and I was so moved by the Spirit of God, that I went over to it with my friend and prayed with my hand upon it. I prayed that this house would be a house of refuge and shelter for those who didn’t have anywhere to go. Once in a while in the years to follow, when I would pass this house, I would remember that particular night. I hadn’t thought about it in recent time.

It was in June of this year that my family and I were looking for a place to go for the summer months. We weren’t able to find a place which would work for us. It was the very day we had to leave our winter rental, when an unexpected door opened to a place to stay. It was a couple of nights later, while going to sleep on the floor in this house, that I remembered that night many years ago. I was in the very house I had prayed at on that snowy night 35 years ago and it had become my house of refuge and place of shelter. I thought about it again on the night of the big storm and I knew I was where He wanted me to be. He provides.

All of this has reinforced in me the knowledge that the Lord has made provision for each and every one of us. He has seen ahead and provided for our needs before we even knew them. He saw our sins before they even were committed and made provision in our Lord Jesus Christ to forgive them. He calls us to trust Him in the aftermath of the storm. He calls us to “walk by faith and not by sight.” He is our place of refuge!

“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed

And in your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

     When as yet there were none of them.”

“How precious also are Your thoughts

    To me, O God!

How great is the sum of them!

   If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand;

When I awake, I am still with you.”   

                                                          Psalm 139:16-18