During War 11, a US marine became separated from his unit in the dangerous terrain of Okinawa, Japan. The fighting had been intense, and in the smoke and the crossfire he had lost touch with his comrades.
Alone in the hills, he could hear enemy soldiers coming in his direction. Scrambling for cover, he found his way up a high ridge to several small caves in the rock. Quickly he crawled inside one of the caves. Although safe for the moment, he realized that once the enemy soldiers looking for him swept up the ridge, they would quickly search all the caves and he would be killed. Unless he was rescued by a miracle.
As he waited, he prayed, “Lord, if it be your will, please protect me. Whatever your will though, I love you and trust you. Amen.”
After praying, he lay quietly listening to the enemy begin to draw close. He thought, “Well, I guess the Lord isn’t going to help me out of this one…” Then he saw a spider begin to build a web over the front of his cave.
As he watched, listening to the enemy searching for him all the while, the spider layered strand after strand of web across the opening of the cave.
“Ha,” he thought. “What I need is a brick wall and what the Lord has sent me is a spider web. God does have a sense of humor.”
As the enemy drew closer he watched from the darkness of his hideout and could see them searching one cave after another. As they came to his, he got ready to make his last stand. To his amazement, however, after glancing in the direction of his cave, the Japanese soldiers moved on. Suddenly, he realized that with the spider web over the entrance, his cave looked as if no one had entered for quite a while. “Lord, forgive me,” prayed the young man. “I had forgotten that in you a spider’s web is as strong as a brick wall!”
The marine was spared, and lived to tell the tale.
When we face great crises in our lives, it is so easy to lose hope in what God can work in our lives, sometimes in the most surprising ways.
Always place your hope in God, for with Him, a mere spider’s web can be a brick wall of protection. With God, all things are possible.
—Offered by Fr. Hugh Duffy from an anonymous marine’s remarkable tale of hope.
2 Comments
Kay Kelly
Father Hugh,
Thank you for another reminder that God’s ways are not our ways. We expect our prayers to be answered in ‘our’ way. Faith is believing – really believing – that God is in charge and He will handle in His way!
Hugh Duffy
You got it, Kay. God is in charge, and His ways are not our ways.