My parents liked to travel and my childhood was full of many wonderful adventures. I don’t remember every museum, monument, and church we toured, but I remember how Mom prayed before each trip and throughout our vacations. She frequently turned to the Bible passage, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore” (Psalms 121:8). After looking up this verse in several Bible translations, I began to see the message as both a prognosis and a promise.
Our family witnessed the fulfillment of that promise on many occasions. One morning, while visiting Great Britain, we piled into a rental car. My dad began driving us along England’s coast on a cliff overlooking the sea. The road was picturesque, windy, and narrow. After driving for nearly twenty minutes, he suddenly realized he was on the wrong side of the road, unaccustomed as he was to driving on the left side. Soon after he quickly switched lanes, a semi-truck came around the bend. Thankfully, we were no longer in its path.
Another time while traveling in a different country, we took a taxi to a tour bus for a day trip. A few hours into our trip, our parents realized they’d left an essential briefcase in the cab. The case contained money, traveler’s checks, our passports, airline tickets, and other important papers. This was before the age of cell phones. I remember our parents initially panicked but steadfastly turned to God. We spent the day quietly praying and reassuring each other that all would be well.
