He Knows the Way Out

When I was a little girl I lived on a farm. There were trees to climb, and a

creek to play in, and lots of animals. My farm was a happy place. But on the day

I want to tell you about, I was not happy. I was locked in the old shed, all alone,

and I was very scared.

You see, we had been playing hide-and-seek in the orchard on the other side

of the barn. But I had gotten bored with hiding in trees and behind trees and

around the corner of the barn. And I thought, “I’ll hide in a place where they

will never find me. And then when they get tired of looking and go away from

the base, I’ll sneak back and get home free!”

What I had forgotten is that when you slammed the door on the old shed it

locked, and there was no latch on the inside to open it. I pounded on the door

and yelled as loud as I could. But my Dad was mowing hay in the field next to

the shed and the machine made so much noise that no one could hear me.

After a while I stopped pounding and yelling and sat down. It was dark in the

shed and cool and lonely. I shivered. “Nobody knows where I am,” I thought.

“Nobody knows. Maybe they’ll never find me.” I thought about missing school

the next day. I thought about the pies my mother was making that afternoon.

Oh, I was hungry. The more I thought about how hungry I was, the more hungry

I got. And then I began to cry. I didn’t like being locked and all alone.

I don’t know how long I cried. But I do know that in all my life until then I had

never felt so alone. As I was crying a very clear thought came to my mind. It

was, “God knows where I am.” (Was that true? That was true!) “Oh God, I’m

so scared. I don’t know how to get out of this locked-in place. Maybe there

isn’t any way out.” But then I thought, “Maybe God knows a way out.”

I dried my eyes and looked around. There was one little window. But it was

too small to climb out and too high to reach anyway. I pushed against the

door again. It was still locked. Then I remembered watching my Daddy pick

the lock on our front door once. He had used a nail file and carefully pushed it

against the latch. But . . . there’s no nail file here. I looked around. There was

a spoon and a fork my sister and I had used to make mud pies when we played in

the shed. And there was a knife. Maybe that would work. I pushed into the lock.

It worked! I walked out and looked at the sky. I never knew before how good

it felt to be free!

I’ve thought about that old shed a lot of times since then. When I have

been in scary places in my life, and all-alone places, and locked-in places.

I always try to remember two things I’m very sure of: God knows

where I am, even when no one else knows, He knows. And I am not

alone. And. . .He . . . He knows the way out!