“It was a dark and stormy night” . . . literally. I was a college student camping in the Lake District of Northern England with a friend. The sun was setting, and a storm was coming in. We had been out hiking in the woods around a lake. As rain started falling, we headed back toward our campsite, but the farther we walked and the more turns we took, the more disoriented we grew as night fell. 

It was a time before cellphones or GPS. We were both Christian Scientists, used to turning to God in prayer. I remembered a simple childhood prayer: “Wherever I am, God is. Since this is so, there is no safer place than where I go.” 

My friend and I came to a road. A few cars and trucks passed by as the rain poured down. It wasn’t safe wandering in the dark, so we decided to hitch a ride in what we thought was the direction of the campsite, but we ended up heading in the opposite direction.