Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”  (Isaiah 26:3-4)

A little over two years ago, our beloved Great Dane, Gunny, had emergency surgery to remove his spleen. It was a life-and-death operation, and we were blessed that he came through the surgery well. We brought him home, only to encounter Hurricane Matthew 24 hours later!

The picture below was taken around 2:30 a.m., with 100 mph winds battering our home, trees snapping and crashing around us, and the entire house groaning and making noises like it was alive. My wife, Alice, and I were hunkered down, praying the giant live oaks on our property would not find their way to our roof, and that we would survive the night. Our adrenalin was high, our hearts were racing, and we were tense and tight as a piano wire.

Not Gunny. He was flat on his back, displaying his freshly shaven abdomen and sporting his 12-inch long incision. Calm and drowsy, the young dog, just a little over a year, considered this just another night in the Robertson household. It was as if God was saying: “If my creatures can be at peace, can’t you? What will your scurrying around do?” I was amazed at this scene – so much so that I paused in the midst of the chaos and took this photograph.

It remains a reminder of how God calls us to peace at just the moment our minds and hearts tell us to panic. In the very midst of the storm He reveals to us that he is, indeed, “an everlasting rock.”

“O most loving Father, who desires for us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care upon you who cares for us: Protect us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have revealed to us in you Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Modernized from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Family Prayers, “For Trustfulness” – page 596)