that summer

In the hot stickiness of July in the South I learned what it was like to have angels all around you. It was a summer of first times and last chances. A summer of miracles.

I was at a meeting for being a youth camp leader. Apprehensive and scared, I had never done this before. I didn't really know what to do. My leader said a prayer before we started the practice run for our faith walk. We never realized how much of a walk of faith that it would really be. Her prayer was different than any one I had ever heard before. She asked for angels. Angels to protect us. We all wondered why we would need them.

With 20 girls and 3 leaders, we went out to the 14 ft-high deck. We all stood there, trying to feel the spirit when the sound of a million little snapping twigs filled the air. Before we even could comprehend what was going on, the floor under us collapsed. The next thing I knew, we were falling the 14 feet to the ground, rolling on top of each other in the pitch black night. After the first initial terrified screams of 20 girls, it was silent. Eerily silent.

I remember my mom running to the back of the house, standing next to the ledge that used to be connected to the fallen deck, and the desperation and sheer terror in my mind as I was trying to hold on to a post, a bench, anything.

One by one, we untangled ourselves from the mass of broken wood and bodies. We stepped back and surveyed the skeletal remains of what used to be called a deck- sending prayers of gratitude because no one was dead, but too numb to realize what had just happened.

We didn't really know what to do as we watched the paramedics and firemen and stayed up late waiting for news about our friends who got hurt.

I think the greatest miracle was when we were told the details about this freak accident. The deck rested on a hill, and if it had fallen backwards, we would have been dead. The deck would have flipped down the hill, causing girls to fly on top of each other, under the wood. We got lucky, the fireman said. The deck fell towards the house because of some unbeknownst reason. They had no reason why it did that, but we did. It was the angels.

Later that summer, at the same camp, there was a storm. We hurried to a central location and watched as the angry clouds swirled around us. We looked up to see a break in the clouds, sun shining down in a circle around where we all stood, keeping us safe.

Later that night we needed it not to rain- we heard the rain, we saw the rain, but we did not feel the rain.

That summer I saw 3 miracles. They still burn in the back of my mind, 4 years later. They are there as a reminder of unity, of love, and of His never-ending presence and protection that I know He gives those who follow Him and love Him.