No confusion in the moment where the Lord and you meet and he says clearly it is not yet your time son.  No hesitation you fight, stick your finger in your wound and run toward battle, knowing if the Lord has left you here then he will certainly preserve you through the storm.  It rages, your head feels like it will rupture from the pressure, but somehow you breathe, take a moment, wipe the sweat and blood from your brow and act.  That is the moment of disambiguation, where you have traveled beyond event horizon and there are no lies, only truth and that truth is that God wants you to survive.

You thought that you couldn’t get any funnier looking, but then you have to laugh and a young Mexican girls runs to her Mother’s skirt in fear having seen your outstanding condition.  Bloodied, battered, scrape, scratched and swollen you must appear a gruesome sight, but you are still alive and that makes only laugh harder when the little girl points to you.  Defenders of life, we are not always pretty, but to see out hearts as God sees you would think again.  How they see you and who you really are may be two different things, only one of which truly matters.

They loved me and many tried their best to care for their Brother.  Though I was beyond reach and communication, I felt their mighty prayers, bidding me stand up and fight.  So I stood and cried out to Jesus, running in his strength for mine had gone, still focusing on the fact that none of these creatures can hurt us as the Word clearly says.  So it was the promise that preserved me.  The firm stand in His righteous promise to cover me, provide for me and protect me.  Sure, He may allow the enemy’s fiery darts to reach my flesh, but that too is for larger purpose, a purpose that may yet be seen, oh but my growth, my faith, my testimony they have been changed by that interaction.  It is never me who fights, I overcome, I depend, I stand in courage knowing that the Lord fights for me and will deliver us from our trials.  I love you Lord and will follow you even to the shadow of the valley of death, if that is where you bid us go.  In Jesus’ Holy Name.