Sounds In The Night...!

It’s 2008 and I am headed into the Daniel Boone National forest for a solo bushcraft trip. It’s my first attempt to film my saga into the wilderness and so I have carefully packed my gear, loaded the camera and tripod into the car and driven the many miles to my destination.

I get out of the car and as I hoist the pack to my shoulders, I can feel the thrill and excitement of the outdoors settling in around me. Walking down the road and across a bridge, I come to my jumping off point. I begin to forge my own trail through the trees and brush and then carefully ford a rather large but boot-shallow creek of 20-25 feet across. Safely reaching the other side, thankful for the efficiency of Goretex boots, I continue my way up the bank and deeper into the forest.

Finally, I find it! The perfect site.  I offload my pack and set up the camera.  As I begin to build my shelter, a modified A-frame that slopes to the ground in the rear, I am talking to the camera and demonstrating what I am doing to my prospective YouTube audience.  I am using a survival blanket for the main roof over the shelter with added branches from hemlock trees to fill in the sides and back where the blanket ends.  To remove the springy green boughs, I am using a new tool that I modified for the job. It is a Kukri knife, hand made from spring steel in Nepal.  I have added green canvas to the sheath, changed the belt loop portion for a more modern fit and sharpened it to a razor edge.   I learned very quickly that one of the hardest woods to cut through are hemlock knots and I was dismayed to find the edge of the blade rolled over in several places! Being a knife-maker, I knew I could repair it once I got back to the knife shop. However, I was a long way from home and so with a damaged and dinged blade, I finished my shelter.

As I was continuing to film, I noticed that the recordable mini DVD that I was using only had a minute or two left and so I went to the camera back to find and put in a new one.  To my dismay, I discovered that although I had carefully charged up the batteries for my wilderness endeavor, I had failed to check and see if I had extra blank mini DVDs for recording.  So, feeling a little put out with myself for the omission, I filmed as much as I could and finished the remainder off camera.  My YouTube career would have to wait a while longer.

Later that night, as I lay in my wonderful shelter (that no one would ever see) in bobcat and bear territory, I began to hear sounds around me….sounds in the night that began to bring thoughts of being attacked and dragged away by some wild animal.  I reached out and heaped wood on my fire and stared out into the darkness as every new sound brought new terror into my mind.  I thought about the fact that even though I had let it be known in general where I was going, no one knew exactly where I was!  It might even be days before they found my ravaged body!  I began to pray with the kind of desperation that only comes when you are truly afraid and I was never more glad to know that there is a loving God in Heaven who was listening.  Even though I was surrounded by the terrors of the night, I knew that I was safe in His Watchful Care.

I pulled out a book that I had brought along and began to read.  Soon, with my heart at peace and my mind distracted, and with the cheery flames leaping up just in front of my shelter, I began to get sleepy and the terror of just a few minutes earlier began to subside.  Committing myself to the care of a Sovereign God, I closed my eyes and slept.

The night passed uneventfully and the next day, I had breakfast and dismantled all but the frame of my shelter, planning on returning some day to that wonderful spot. As I headed back home, my thoughts turned to gratefulness as I thought of the emotions of the previous night and how I had been safely kept through that dark time by the Hand of Providence.

Spiritually speaking, we all, from time to time, go through periods of darkness and terror. The pain and anguish that fills our soul makes us feel that we might not survive the ordeal.  Paul and Silas had such an experience in the town of Philippi.  Even though they had come to bring the Gospel message of love and hope to the Philippian people, they were falsely accused, whipped severely and placed in a jail with their legs in stocks.  With no medical attention and in the dark, they surely were tempted to thoughts of despair.  However, we read in Acts 16:25 that about midnight, they began to pray and sing songs.  Of course, God intervened, there was an earthquake that freed them, and as a result the Philippian jailer and his entire family came to faith!

We never know where we will be or when the temptation will come, but life is filled with unexpected turns and events.  When that moment comes, we have a decision to make.  Will we let the Demons of Despair and Darkness bring panic to our soul, or will we trust the God of Heaven to provide for us and protect us?  Will we have peace or terror? Will the sounds in the night bring fear, or will the sounds in the night turn into songs in the night? The choice is yours. What will you do?

Thanks for reading!

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James B