I Shall Fear No Evil

Quietly she slipped through the trees, unnoticed. She left the dark hood over her head, concealing her face, and protecting herself from the harsh wind. Her long skirts dragged in the mud, making it harder than usual to move with speed. Suddenly lightning lit the sky, reflecting in her fearful eyes, and thunder cracked, causing her ears to ring. She covered her mouth as she gasped, trying to keep from screaming. Involuntarily, she started to shiver. Already active butterflies multiplied and added to their antics. She must stay hidden, she must remain undetected, she must not be found. The secrets she carried were too great to be discovered by enemy forces.

Her name was Sarah Nelson. The year, 1776. At 17, she was already doing what she could to support the American side in the Revolutionary War. Despite the risks, this often meant she had to make dangerous treks across enemy territory to deliver notes to the American captains. These notes must never fall into the hands of British captains, nor must she ever be caught traveling across their terrain.

The storm that night made it slightly easier as she did not expect any soldiers or patrolmen to be out in such rain or lightning and thunder. Horses often shied, and men hardly could be expected to stand watch at the risk of being struck and killed. As if confirming her thoughts, the rainfall increased and it began to soak through her normally waterproof cloak. The cold began to seep into her body. Her teeth chattered and she could barely move her fingers. The fear came back in full force as a tree fell just in front of her, victim to the blustering and angry wind.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” The words from the familiar psalm ran through her mind. “I shall fear no evil,” she finished aloud. Surprised to hear her own voice above the sounds of rain, blowing leaves, and wind, she felt heartened. The Lord would protect her in this time of peril. Even when injury — or death — seemed imminent, she would trust on Him to guard her from the dangers.


Little did Sarah know, a watchman was out on duty. He sat with his back against a tree, just praying the lightning would not choose this one for its next casualty. He had glimpsed what he thought was a figure moving from tree to tree. When the lightning flashed, the brightness of it had inhibited him from seeing clearly whether or not it was a human form. After his eyes adjusted to the dark again, he could not find the figure again. Telling himself it was just his imagination, he resumed his anxious prayer.

There! There it was again! It was too tall and slender to be a deer. It had to be human.

“Animals aren’t dumb enough to be out in this weather anyway,” he muttered to himself. He watched closely, careful not to lose the shadow. It didn’t move like a man, nor did it seem to be wearing britches. But a woman? Out tonight in this rain? It was beyond his wildest imaginings, so he crept closer. After watching a few more minutes in which the woman seemed to move only a few yards, he decided to stop her. That was his duty, after all. So he positioned himself behind a tree in her path. When she was near him, he stepped from behind it and ordered her to halt.


Startled, Sarah gasped loudly. Her heart pounded nervously in her throat and ears. Eyes searching the soldier's face wildly, she discovered he looked no older than 20, the age of her brother. But she obeyed his voice and halted.

“What is your business here?”

Frantically, Sarah searched for an answer. “I am—” she squeaked. She started over. “I am making my way through to visit my mother. She is giving birth tonight.”

“Where are you coming from?”

“My uncle’s home. I visited this morning to see how my aunt was doing with her new baby. When the rain came, I decided to stay the night. Then word reached me of the arrival of Mother’s baby.”

“Why do you have no chaperone?”

“None could be spared.”

He eyed her suspiciously. The story seemed likely, but he was taught never to trust. But she looked so young and fearful! She could never be trusted as a spy. Trusting in his own judgment, he decided to allow her to pass through.

“All right. May God grant you safety through these woods!” He stepped aside.

Sarah scurried past him, curtsying and thanking him profusely. “My mother will be eternally grateful for your understanding!”

Once she could no longer see him, she fingered the note tucked in the bodice of her dress, not believing she had escaped undetected. The psalm ran through her mind again. Tears ran down her face. She could not even pray, her relief was so great.

The Lord was truly good to her. He truly kept His promises.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

I've been thinking a lot about persistence lately. I seem to have a pretty good dose of it, despite my lazy and procrastinating nature. But I have been thinking about it very much lately because of a few happenings in my life.

First, I put together a get-together of homeschool alumni through HomeschoolAlumni.org. "Dreamer" describes me well, but I've hardly ever had to actually go through with my dreams yet. So it has taken a lot of persistence on my behalf to help my parents organize it, as well as communicate with my guests. Some days, I'd really like to quit. "False alarm, y'all, I've decided not to have a get-together." Yet, I keep going. Day after day, level after level of excitement and nervousness. It will all come together, we will pull it off.

Secondly, and what feels like most importantly, is my novel. I usually do get mid-novel blues, which is when one feels very disappointed in themselves and the novel as well as discouraged enough to think about quitting. Basically, it's a period in which the author drags his or her feet in finishing it. So, I've got mid-novel blues. On top of that, the trial run for the word processor I was using to write it ran out. I started to switch the document over to OpenOffice, and discovered the page margins and sizes and whatnot are all different. That gives me a totally different page count. I know, I know, I should be going by word count, not page count, but I do things the hard way the first time around. Let me tell you, it's not paying off. But I finally got it close enough to make me happy, and started writing, after I had writer's block. I was feeling good about it and was eager to finish the chapter. However -- dumb me -- I forgot to save the document. While I was reading English Literature (and feeling good about getting caught up there), my laptop restarted because of updates. When it came back to life, I went through the recovery steps to get all my work back and it didn't give it to me. Read that? The recovery system recovered nothing. So I researched the problem to see what I could do to get all my beautiful writing back. Absolutely nothing. OpenOffice had a bug, and I needed to update if I wanted the recovery to work properly. Of course, that doesn't help the stuff I lost, so I updated and restarted today. I haven't had nearly half the success I had yesterday, but all my material will come back and maybe it'll be even better this time around. Unfortunately, I've been having my doubts.

Needless to say, I've perfected my sigh lately. All this keeps me looking to Him, ever constant, always recovering lost material. It's comforting to know that even if I quit, He never will. It also strengthens my resolve to keep going. Might take a little longer than I expected, but I will reach the finish line.

[Insert Title Here]

On January 21, 2009, our rabbit Elizabeth gave birth to six beautiful kits (baby bunnies). I was able to witness the birth of three of them, reminding me yet again how miraculous babies and birth are. Four of them were brown, and two were black. This was the first time we had ever had that ratio of colors.

January 29, 2009: One of the kits found dead underneath the water bottle.

January 31, 2009: One kit found dead under the basement sink, because someone had left the cage door unlatched and the kit crawled out. Another kit found dead between the nesting box and litter box.

February 5, 2009: One kit found dead in the cage. Another kit found dead in the nesting box.

As of 3 PM EST on February 5, 2009, that leaves us with only one surviving kit left. Being a rabbit owner and breeder, I am exasperated. What on earth could be wrong with the kits? Was it something I did? Elizabeth did? Was it just the way the kits were born? Whose fault is it? At this point, there is no clear answer. Chances are, it's a combination of incidents and situations and whatever else.

In other news, I have been extremely lazy, as well as productive. I have been seriously slacking in school. I am currently reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis which could take me about a day to read, but instead it's been almost two weeks and I'm not even halfway through. I haven't even begun to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I haven't touched Emma in weeks. I need to finish Consumer Mathematics and Science before May. I have about 15-20 books to read by then as well. Hand, meet Forehead. *whack*

But! I did say I was productive. At least that's what I call baking 156 gingersnaps, 197 chocolate chip cookies, 50-something brownies, and making 60 Oreo truffles.

My entire family has had the flu. I have escaped it so far. Chances are, I'll get sick tonight or tomorrow, but at this point I could care less. I've finally come off the sugar-high from last night and I'm feeling slightly irritable, at the moment, although very composed and apathetic. The oddest things are annoying me right now is all.

I got contacts on Friday and have been wearing them every day since. They're pretty spiffy. I like being able to see without glasses. My eyelashes are long and a pain, since if I don't hold them out of the way, they poke my contacts when I'm trying to put them in and flip the contacts or knock them off my finger. Yesterday, this happened and the contact landed on the toilet brush. I cleaned it very thoroughly, needless to say. And yes, I can feel them. Yes, I have put them in inside out and attempted to drive myself to insanity -- more than I already am, that is.

Life is good. The sun rises, the sun sets. I'm not sick with the flu yet. My parents love me, I love my family. And God still reigns. Tomorrow is another day, a day in which I will actually accomplish something. The time for lists is now.

Questions of the Heart

Who would've guessed that one could give a piece of her heart away to some man she had never met and merely thought was “hot”, implying she had little respect for him. Yet apparently it can happen. I did it.

One day, I mentioned to my friend how good-looking I thought some actors were. She believed I had seriously fallen for them, and hinted that I shouldn't say such things. I replied that I couldn't help it if they were hot. “Hot” is a term I reserve for those I have never met, have little respect for as people, and are extremely good-looking, yet she mentioned that by saying things like that my future husband would only have a tiny, gnawed-on piece of my heart left. Needless to say, this not only seemed illogical to me as I could never give a piece of my heart to someone I've never met, but also peaked my curiosity. Where did this idea of “pieces of the heart” come from?

Through the next year or so, I kept hearing about “pieces of the heart”, usually in direct correlation with “emotional purity”. At first, I found the idea rational, as most ideas are. But the more I read, the more it didn't make sense. Of course it had its valid points, but the logic just wasn't matching up.

Deciding to sort out my thoughts on paper, the idea for this research paper was born. My goal is not to change minds, nor to attack those who follow the emotional purity movement, rather to share what I have found and to inspire others to think for themselves on this subject. It is with much prayer, thought, and discussion with others that I have written this. Unfortunately, not all points may be covered as thoroughly as I would like, but it should suffice for now. I may recant my position on some of this eventually. However, this is my current decision on emotional purity.

Click here to read the full paper.