Today I went walking at Camp Riversite. It is a park a couple miles from our home. I was hoping to see signs of Spring. Instead I saw old growth. Signs that life had been there, and would probably return.

There was an old burr oak that must have been over 200 years old.

I tried to imagine it as a seedling…imagining all the different people over the years that might have stopped and looked at it. The children that might have climbed in it’s branches.

This tree would have been 100 years old when the influenza hit in early 1918.  They called it the Spanish flu. That pandemic killed my husband’s grandfather and 675,000 other people in the United States. 50,000,000 were to die world wide. Most of them ages 15-34. (*)  The death rate was 50%. Not good odds.

As I read through Bible passages looking for stories for these posts I am wading through hundreds  and thousands of years. The one constant is the God who created it all and is longing for us to turn to Him. Time and time again He is there when the trouble hits. He is there when people cry out to Him.

Today we are looking at someone who was given a gift they didn’t ask for. (Actually two people received things they didn’t ask for.) We are also looking at the death of someone in the age group mentioned above. You can find the story in II Kings 4:8-37.

Here is the study template if you need it. anxiety template

Let me know what you learn. Until next time.

Karen

* (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html)