Echoes From the Campfire

We don’t always get to choose the paths we travel down, but we can choose how we walk them.”
                         –Cliff Hudgins  (Veijo and the Lost Child)

       “For He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways.”

                         –Psalm 91:11 (HCSB)
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Mercy me!  A couple of noteworthy things before I get to the devotion for today.  First of all, this September I will have been writing the “Daily Paine/Echoes From the Campfire for twenty-one years.  I started it back in September 2001, just prior to the attack on the Towers.  I changed the name from the Daily Paine a few years back when I retired.  Along with that I have been writing about Miles Forrest since February 2010.  Hard to believe.  With Miles Forrest there are now three novels for sale on Amazon about his life and adventures:  Return From Tincup; Winter of the Wolves; Call to Justice.  It has been interesting to say the least.
       Second, the ol’ steel mount is ready to go.  All the supplies have been packed tightly using a Double Diamond and the Lord willing we’ll be heading out in the morning for Maryland.  I made sure my slicker wasn’t packed on the bottom.  In saying that I’m not sure when an Echo will be sent out.  There may be several, there may be only a few, and if I take a notion to really relax, there may be none.  In the meantime, grab a copy of my new book about Elias Butler–Ticket to Danger.  It’s available on Amazon and is the sixth book about the life of Elias Butler.  The stories are made up but in reality Elias Butler was my Great-Great-Great Grandfather who was born in 1794 in Campbell, VA and died in 1875 in Morgan, TN.
       Now on to the thought of the day.  I am borrowing (again) from one of my favorite devotionals:  God Is No Fool, by Lois A. Cheney (1969).  I have used this little book over and over again for thoughts, for Echoes, and for my own personal contemplations.  Ponder the thoughts.

               “. . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
   
               Did you ever wonder what you would do in the time of crisis?  Days pass into months of seemingly endless safety, but there always lurks the sudden pain, the sudden grief, the unexpected interruption that jerks life from its normal path.

               I’ve watched some face the chasms of life and fail.  I’ve watched others face them and walk confidently across.

               As a Christian I feel a special obligation to face life.  But I’ve long wondered whether my faith would be strong enough; whether my courage would be broad enough; and whether I would be able, alone, to meet the challenge.

               And one time, it came like a dawning.  The Christ seemed to angrily remind me that a Christian never faces anything alone.  The great promise of Christ is to be  there, with his hand on our shoulders.

               We do not face life alone.

Remember that in the next pandemic, the next hurricane or other storm, the next blizzard, or while you thirst in the next drought.  In the midst of any and every crisis, storm, terror, or pestilence we do not face it alone.  And I’ll close this note like I do my Saturday Coffee Percs–Go With God!
        Vaya con Dios.