Snow day! and the Fourth Watch

I received a call this morning at about 5:10 am. It is a call that I had been praying for DAYS to receive! We have been experiencing an unusually large volume of snow, I am told, for the Boise area and have been hearing that maybe we would be getting a call early in the morning that school is closed for the day. Well, today was the day and it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. This just affirms what I already know: All happens in the Lord's time. I read a quote recently online that says “God may not always come when we ask Him, but He’ll always be on time.” -Alex Haley

For me this snow day is a huge blessing and reaffirmation that God knows me and is mindful of me in my challenges. I feel like I can breath now. In all of this, I keep thinking of the scriptural account in the new testament and of a talk I read by S. Michael Wilcox titled 'The Fourth Watch'. The part in his talk that keeps playing over in my head is when Brother Wilcox talks about how when we have challenges in our life and we feel like we have been left to struggle on our own (the the Lord feels like he is far away), the Lord is ALWAYS there. Sometimes we are left in what feels like the dark, so we can more fully appreciate the light when it comes.

The scriptural account it is based on is recorded in a few places, including Mark 6. Jesus has just fed the thousands with the loaves of bread and fishes and afterwards He sends his disciples out on the ship while he goes to pray. The seas become tumultuous and they were rowing and fighting against it.

Mark 6:

45..straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.
46 And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.
47 And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land.
48 And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them...

Brother Wilcox goes on the explain the significance of the fourth watch, that the night is divided up into sections: the fourth watch is from 3 am to sunrise. The disciples had been toiling for most of the night on their own, I'm sure they were exhausted. I don't know much about the geographical terrain of Bethsaida and the area they were in, but Brother Wilcox explains it a little that adds greater power to those verses. From what he said, where Jesus stood to see the disciples 'toiling in rowing' was from up high on what sounds like a cliff and that He had been watching them for awhile before He came down to them.

I think of us in our lives, how we may feel we are left alone to toil and labor, thinking we have been abandoned to suffer through life's different challenges alone. Only to find we have been watched over the entire time, that we weren't alone. When we get to the end of our rope, where we think we can hold on no longer, and then some...He comes. In that fourth watch, to help us.

Today for me is that fourth watch.

For whatever reason we have those times to struggle through, to stretch us a little further, to chisel a little bit more of the natural man away-to keep us humble and close to our Heavenly Father. To remember who is the ONLY source of comfort and truth and can help us 'see' when we come out of a very dark night. Now, I am not saying that this has been the darkest time in my life that I have felt so alone, nor will it be the last-I am sure. But, it has been a trying time and I have come to 'Remember' (Mosiah 4-30) that all powerful truth that God is ever mindful of me, of all his children. (1 Nephi 11:17)

In conclusion of the chapter of the fourth watch, after Jesus comes to his disciples walking across the water after their long night, he tells them to be not afraid and you read of their response to what had happened.

50 For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
51 And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.

Today, I better understand how those disciples felt.