HHIEGT?

I want to borrow someone else’s Encounter with God - it will lift your spirit!

A couple and their helpers traveled to Mississippi and set up their large fireworks tent for holiday revelers several miles from Jackson. Several competitors’ tents also dotted the lot, each of varying sizes. This husband and wife speculated that afternoon about everyday matters: the amount of money they would take home from the stacks of Roman candles, rockets, plain old firecrackers, sparklers, and other novelty items, if they would make enough to pay the helpers well, and noted the number of cars clustered around the other tents comparing them with the number who had chosen their wares. They didn’t suspect they would encounter the Lord and his mercy in such a spectacular way on this Mississippi afternoon.

As they and their workers tended to business, a fearsome tornado roared down upon them! They fled the tent, all five of their little group, jumping into a pick-up truck; the wife curled in the floor of the vehicle, arms cradling her belly, trying to protect the child within her.

The storm picked up the canvas tent as we might snatch up a dish cloth, and tangled it in a power line. One bundle of fireworks sped through the air past the frightened crew in the truck (every one of whom was praying aloud); all watched the storm grab $50,000 worth of fireworks and hurl them into the skies - to vanish. Even if they’d been concerned anymore about being bested in sales, it was a moot point. No tents remained to compete.

The truck and its occupants were unhurt.

As they crawled from the truck cab, the thoughts they’d entertained earlier had vanished like the fireworks and the tornado. No longer were they concerned about whether their supply of pyrotechnics would sell and how many would sell, and how much profit they’d take home. Only praises for their God filled them!

Later they returned to the motel to find another blessing: a generator to power lights and other conveniences. But the best was yet to come.

A man with a saxophone appeared in the midst of the devastation, and proceeded to play How Great Thou Art. The husband, in relating the story later, proclaimed it “The most wonderful worship service I’ve ever been in!” Another worshipful Encounter with God when he used music to feed the soul.

One last grace note: The wife’s purse with about $800 in it flew away with the fireworks - but God allowed them to find it.