“He's With Me”
By Phyllis I. Martin

torm clouds and strong gusts of wind had come up suddenly over the Alpine Elementary School. The radio blared tornado warnings. It was too dangerous to send the children home. Instead, they were taken to the basement, where they huddled together in fear.
     We teachers were worried too. To help ease tensions, the principal suggested a sing-along. But the voices were weak and unenthusiastic. Child after child began to cry—we could not calm them.
     Then a teacher, whose faith seemed equal to any emergency, whispered to the child closest to her, “Aren't you forgetting something, Kathie? There is a power greater than the storm that will protect us. Just say to yourself, 'God is with me now.' Then pass the words on to the child next to you.”
     As the thought was whispered from child to child, a sense of peace settled over the group. I could hear the wind outside still blowing with the same ferocity as the moment before, but it didn't seem to matter now. Inside, fear subsided and tears faded away.
     When the all-clear signal came over the radio sometime later, students and staff returned to their classrooms without their usual jostling and talking.
     Through the years I have remembered those calming words. In times of stress and trouble, I have again been able to find release from fear and tension by repeating, “He's with me now.”

This Moment

He's helping me now--this moment,
Though I may not see it or hear,
Perhaps by a friend far distant,
Perhaps by a stranger near,
Perhaps by a spoken message,
Perhaps by the printed word;
In ways that I know and know not,
I have the help of the Lord.

He's keeping me now--this moment,
However I need it most,
Perhaps by a single angel,
Perhaps by a mighty host,
Perhaps by the chain that frets me,
Or the walls that shut me in;
In ways that I know and know not,
He keeps me from harm or sin.

When the sun is setting,
And we watch its dying ray,
We never doubt it will appear
To light another day.
So let us face our future,
Secure in faith that He
Who rules sunrise and sunset,
Keeps watch o'er you and me.

                            —Annie Johnson Flint

ir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) tells how he and two other men, Worsley and Crean, battled against terrible odds in a temperature many degrees below zero, as they made their way over the almost impassable mountains and the treacherous glaciers of South Georgia Island in their efforts to seek aid for the rest of the marooned trans-Antarctic expedition. Of this march Sir Ernest Shackleton writes:
“When I look back on those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us. … I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, and not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterward Worsley said to me, 'Boss, I had a curious feeling on that march that there was another Person with us.' Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels 'the dearth of human words, the roughness of human speech' in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would not be complete without a reference to a subject so very near to our hearts.”