Tropical Storm Idalia right now is off the western tip of Cuba....and people along much of the Gulf Coast of Florida are preparing for a hurricane....and praying....as should we also be praying along with them. When I heard those words on The Weather Channel....'western tip of Cuba'....it immediately brought to mind another storm in the same place....a much....much smaller storm....this back in March of 1983....but with high enough waves to send all of us on the cruise ship back to our cabins. I remember walking down the hallway....bracing ourselves....my wife and I....on the left wall and then the right wall and so on until we came to our cabin in the center of the ship....no windows....two twin beds and a table.
I was a newer Christian at the time....with a 700 Club pin on my hat....and some Christian books brought along to read....one of them was....Home Where I Belong....by B. J. Thomas....yeah....a couple books and a Christian magazine....Charisma.....but no Bible. That's about where I was at the time in this new faith. It was early evening and I was laying on that bunk. A glass of water was sliding across the bed table and I caught it before it fell to the ground. I opened the table drawer....and the Gideons had provided God's Word....for someone like me.
I owned a Bible at the time....probably the first complete Bible....Old Testament and New.....that I ever owned. As a matter of fact that same Bible is sitting on the arm of the chair right next to me now....as I retrieved it for this post. My wife had given it to me as a Christmas present three months earlier....but at the time I was more into testimonies....B. J. Thomas's for example....than God's Word telling me what had happened to me.
In that storm off the western tip of Cuba....I picked up the Gideon's Bible from out of the drawer.....let it open to wherever it would open....and started to read the first words that I came to. They were from the 93rd Psalm....most likely from the New King James Version....these were those glorious words that I read as the cruise ship rocked in the waves....
The Lord reigns,
He is clothed with majesty;
The Lord is clothed,
He has girded himself with strength.
Surely the world is established,
so that it cannot be moved.
Your throne is established from of old;
You are from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O LORD,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.
The LORD on high is mightier
Than the noise of many waters,
Than the mighty waves of the sea.
Your testimonies are very sure;
Holiness adorns your house,
O LORD, forever."
This experience obviously affected me enough to remember....forty years later....even the details of what happened. After returning home from the cruise....I went out and purchased a pocket Bible....Holman Bible Publishers....New American Standard....imitation leather....I retrieved it also from the basement....5 1/4" by 3 1/2"....a perfect fit in the back pocket....both covers long gone from putting it in that pocket so many times!
