When I was a girl of sixteen, our family spent the summer in a little village on the Irish Coast.
Quite close to the cottage where we lived, there was a coast guard Station, to which my brother Tom and I often went in search of adventure. We watched the men practice with the lifesaving rocket, and the life belts. Out on the sea, a boat was anchored to represent a wreck, and we were often allowed on this boat to act the part ni the shipwrecked crew. What fun it was to be brought to shore on a life belt!
I well remember one day the old coast guard shaking his head and sang to me, “You find great fun in playing with the life belts, my lass, but if you were shipwrecked on a stormy coast you would make a different use of them.” And then he added in a kind but firm voice, “And it’s just the same with the Saviour. I hope you have felt your need of Him.” I thought that was a strange thing to say, but the remembrance of it never left me.
That very evening a sudden storm came up. The wind roared, and the waves mounted higher and higher. and just as we were ready to go to bed a cry of distress was heard out on the stormy sea. At once we got ready and rushed down to the Station and there found the crew just starting to fire it rocket over a schooner which had struck a rock and was fast sinking in the waves. As the old chief coast guard caught sight of me, he gave me a meaning look, as if to enforce the words of that afternoon.
Soon a dripping exhausted sailor was brought in by the very line and life belt on which I had had so much fun. Poor fellow: he had been battling with grim death among the waves, and when that life belt came, he knew it was his only chance of being saved. One after another the poor fellows were brought to shore, and before we returned home, we knew that they were all safely rescued. The next morning we hurried back, and there found the faithful coast guard conducting a thanksgiving service to God for their deliverance, and inviting them to accept the Deliverer from the coming storm of judgment. He told them of how my brother Tom and I often played with that life-saving apparatus in the calm weather, but what a different matter it was to commit yourself to the life belt to save you from a watery grave. The rescued men seemed to feel the power of his words. None of them had spurned the offer of rescue from their sinking ship, and yet how many times boys and girls turn away from God’s offer of forgiveness and salvation.
Very soon after that, I could stay away no longer, and I cast myself upon the Lord Jesus and He saved me, as He promised to do. I felt my need and my burden was dragging me down, down to an eternal hell, and I remembered the words of the faithful coast guard, and trusted Jesus as my Deliverer and Saviour. Do come to Him right now, for the storm of God’s judgment is very near at hand and He longs to shelter you and rescue you.
ML 06/17/1951