My cousin and I along with two friends were on a fishing trip in the Canadian wilderness. We had pitched our tent on the shore of a small peninsula jutting out into a big lake. It was around one or two in the morning when someone yelled, “Help!” Large waves in the lake were crashing just outside our tent and gale-force winds threatened to collapse it. Rain was coming in and starting to soak our things.

The wind was hitting the tent with such force that one of the braces holding up the roof had broken and another was bent and in serious danger of snapping. My cousin and I jumped out of our sleeping bags and put our shoulders against the wall where the roof appeared to be about to give way. 

In the Bible, a psalm affirms: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. . . . The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge” (Psalms 46:1–3, 7).