I received word two nights ago that the workers in two orphanages in Morocco were deported in mass numbers to their home countries. They leave behind their lives, and the children over whom they've been caring. The charge brought against them was "proselytizing," and the judgment severe. I feel weak in that choked-up-sort-of way when answers do not come, and comfort for the mourning seems so far away. I think of the verse last recorded, and await the unfolding of the plans He has formed long ago.

I dreamed last night that myself and one or two others were climbing up the side of a tremendously ominous crag of rocks. At some point a horrendous purple snake was discovered and the other with me began pulling at it. The contents of my mind are fuzzy, but the more she tugged at it, the more was revealed of this creature. In my recollection, I was not in this battle, but was whimpering off to the side and onlooking with complete terror. Somehow the head finally emerged; grotesque and seething, and she somehow reached out to it. It was obvious that her actions were miraculous, for then she was able to remove its head, and defeat it. I was a completely uninvolved and paralyzed onlooker, and I've spent this morning unconsciously shuddering over the night's terror. Moments ago I realized what implications this could have for me now.

Fear is a twisted shelter, under which we seem to assemble in masses. It offers no protection, and certainly no deliverance, but somehow its weight seems familiar and comfortably binding to us. It is so akin to our existence that we don't even realize its presence. So many fears lie crouched in my life, and I hide from those things; cower, tremble, forgetting the victory has already been one. I stumbled upon this scripture this morning:

5"The departed spirits tremble
Under the waters and their inhabitants.
6"Naked is Sheol before Him,
And Abaddon has no covering.
7"He stretches out the north over empty space
And hangs the earth on nothing.
8"He wraps up the waters in His clouds,
And the cloud does not burst under them.
9"He obscures the face of the full moon
And spreads His cloud over it.
10"He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters
At the boundary of light and darkness.
11"The pillars of heaven tremble
And are amazed at His rebuke.
12"He quieted the sea with His power,
And by His understanding He shattered Rahab.
13"By His breath the heavens are cleared;
His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent.
14"Behold, these are the fringes of His ways;
And how faint a word we hear of Him!
But His mighty thunder, who can understand?"