Learning to Trust: ‘Lost Until the Light Comes’
Chris is Hiding from the Wolf in the Tree Hollow
In my book
‘Lost Until the Light Comes’, 6-year-old Chris finds himself in a very dangerous situation. He is running away from the wolf. This would be a terrifying situation to be in for an adult – let alone a child! The advice that I would give any Christian child in a similar situation is to send an ‘arrow prayer’ to God. By this I mean a short, sharp prayer. In these situations, it’s all we have time for, and of course, God will hear it. He will rush in to help.
Chris probably doesn’t realise that while he is waiting in the tree hollow, out of reach of the wolf, he is trusting in God in two ways. 1. He is trusting that God is real – and worth praying to, and 2. He is trusting that the God who created him cares enough to reach down and answer him. As an aside, you can see that due to The Holy Trinity’s protective power, the wolf has become docile and is no longer thinking about eating Chris – he is, now, just watching him…
Like all of us in a similar situation, little Chris is having to use his ‘trust muscles’. As difficult as these scenes are, my hope is that children will see that God is real and always with them; that He hears every prayer and that He will respond. As we know, sometimes we wish that He would act sooner rather than later in lots of situations in our lives. I have toremember in times like this that God is a God of love and that He has His reasons for His Timing. We may only see His Reasons on the other side of the veil.. And it is in these trying times when we feel that God is working too slowly that our ‘trust muscles’ are really being worked and strengthened.
Answers to Prayer
Can I give you two personal examples of how God answered my prayers?
The first takes place while I was on holiday in beautiful Sri Lanka. I should have been relaxed and having the time of my life, right? Well, I wasn’t. I didn’t realise that I was carrying HUGE amounts of stress and unresolved tensions. Alone in my room, as I snuggled up in a chair to read, I suddenly felt my mind start to leave my body. I was ‘beside myself’. This was hugely scary. I immediately started shouting “Jesus, Jesus!” I can’t remember if I did this aloud or internally…but in less than a second, my mind came back into my head, and I was whole again and safe. I will never forget this experience. The name of ‘Jesus’ definitely saves! I can testify to this from the above example.
“For all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved”
Romans 10:13
My second example happened in Germany in 2005 when I was with a group of friends …and a few thousand other people! I was attending the World Youth Day (even though I was 44 years old at the time!) andthousands of us pilgrims were in a field in Cologne. It was the closing ceremony after the final Mass. It suddenly occurred to myself and my friends that we had to ‘hot foot’ it back to our hotel, grab our suitcases and get to the airport so that we could catch our flight back to England!
We hastily left the field and got onto the nearby road where we were expecting the coaches to collect us. We were desperate to get on the first coach that came! The men in our group decided to walk farther along the road in case any of the coaches were waiting just out of sight. And we ladies decided to stay in one spot and pray. As we prayed, more and morepilgrims were arriving along the road to catch the coaches. Now, there were so many people, and I feared we wouldn’t be the first to get on a coach. After about five minutes a coach did turn up, but much farther along the road, and our male friends hadn’t returned back from their excursion! We had to just watch as people scrambled onto the coach, leaving us behind. Then after about another 10 minutes another coach arrived and stopped right in front of us… and simultaneously, our male friends were returning from their unsuccessful walk! And ‘yes’, we caught our flight back home! I clearly remember thinking that feverish activity wasn’t what helped us – but God’s provision through trusting prayer absolutely did!
I hope that when your child listens to/ reads ‘Lost until the Light Comes’ that they will see that God is with them and that He can be trusted to bring them to safety.
