Marooned

 

I heard this true story from a TV preacher this past Sunday morning: A sailor’s ship was bombed and sank during WWII.  The sailor managed to survive and make it to a nearby deserted island in the South Pacific.  He gathered debris from the ship and had enough items to survive.  He eventually built a little wooden house with a palm frond roof to keep the rain off.  With a cooking fire in the front, he was doing better than just surviving.  One day, he was out scavenging the beach some distance away from his little home when he saw smoke from the direction of his hut.  He dropped everything and ran to the hut.  By the time he had arrived, it was fully ablaze and nothing could be done.  Everything that he had accumulated was now going up in smoke.  He slumped to the ground totally devastated.  “Why has God deserted me?!” he thought.  But an hour later, a ship appeared on the horizon!  A rescue party in a small boat soon arrived at the beach.  The marooned sailor was thrilled and asked, “How did you know I was here?”  The ship’s captain was puzzled and responded, “We saw your signal fire in the distance and followed it here.”  Often in life, our tragedies turn out to be God’s blessings in disguise.  Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”