Songs in the Night
I returned last week from Central Texas, where green ribbons festoon trees and lampposts as far as Dallas, in memory of those who lost their lives in the July 4th floods.
In the Guadalupe River, water rose 27 feet in 45 minutes. Steep terrain and shallow soil funneled the colossal amount of rainfall into courses of the Guadalupe, the San Gabriel, and the Llano River, which is near my sister’s ranch.
She and her husband took me to see the San Gabriel 5 days after it flooded. We had taken our little children many years ago to wander in the puddles and trickles of that red stone river bed; I had joked that it was hardly a river. Now we stood on a bluff looking down at it. It was about 30 feet below us, but the debris from the high water point was around our feet. I felt goosebumps in the heat.
The swell of water happened in the middle of the night, much in country unlit and unconnected to cell towers. In such an area was the Christian ministry, Camp Mystic, which sustained the most loss of life among children.
The faith and family ties of all those lost in the area brings poignancy to the story. Blair and Brooke Harber, middle school age, were found still holding hands. The Harber grandparents died as well. Malaya Hammond died trying to save her family. Camp Mystic’s director died trying to rescue campers.
Ironically, during my visit, my sister was trying to plan her family’s previously-scheduled Cousin Camp. Two of her grandchildren were now mourning a little friend who had drowned. I picked up her Amplified Bible lying nearby, and read a verse to encourage my sister: Isaiah 44:3b, which says, “I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing upon your descendants.” She loved hearing that, and we looked together at the context. The first part of the verse reads, “For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” We balked a little at that part.
But shall we accept good from the Lord, and not hard times, as Job 2:10 suggests? The rain falls upon both the unjust and the just, as we might paraphrase Matthew 5:45. Perhaps it’s not Cousin Camp material, but for mature believers, this passage hints that water for one thirsty man is another man’s flood. God sovereignly decides how He will water both land and souls.
Psalm 105 says that the word of the Lord in the troubles of Joseph “proved him true.” Yet his brothers were proved untrue by the same challenges. Job and Job’s wife reacted radically differently to their woes. Peter and Judas both found themselves deniers of Jesus, but Peter repented and was elevated to lead the Church; Judas killed himself alone in bitterness. God’s wonderful acts often involve—include— the suffering of good people, as in His glorification in the persecution of believers, healing after disease, comfort after catastrophe, and triumph after a long slog of obedience by the saints. It is this God that Psalm 105 is talking about:
Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.
2 Sing to him, sing praise to him;
tell of all his wonderful acts.
By all accounts, the girls of Camp Mystic loved to sing. A neighbor to the campground said she loved to sit on her porch in the evening and hear them sing hymns and worship songs. You can hear the girls, if you dare, in the video, “Hearts and Heroes: Flooding in the Texas Hill Country” at
Survivors say the littlest ones sang as long as they could on that final night. I am confident that many of them are singing in the Kingdom as I write this.
Karyna McGlynn, a writer, camp director, and Mystic alumna, said this: “When I think about Mystic I hear the smack of…flipflops on the…limestone steps, the cicadas…voices singing, coming, like, through the dark toward you and you can’t see who it is yet, but you can hear the singing….”
“When I think about Mystic I hear the smack of… flipflops along the… limestone steps, the cicadas…voices singing, coming, like, through the dark toward you and you can’t see who it is yet, but you can hear the singing….” Karyna McGlynn, a writer, camp director, and Mystic alumna
“The river is Camp Mystic, you know?”
Photo at 15:0
Green ribbons
Water rose 27 feet in 45 minutes.
San Gabriel River
Amplified Bible, Classic Ed
3 For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing upon your descendants.