The Same Wind Swirling Around Us

The wind threatened to throw off all our careful trebuchet flinging calculations. We had to wait to test our Science Olympiad beauty between gusts  With proper timing, the wind would carry the projectile all the way to heaven's gate. Then we would fall on our knees and call out, "Lord help us!"

We had just remeasured the trebuchet which must fit inside a 75 cm box to be legal for the contest in 2 weekends. We had measured it many times. It had been a half centimeter under legal outer limits. Whew.
But it seems to be growing. It's length is now exactly 75 centimeters. We will clearly have to cut back on its diet. We are all a little worried. I think the pin that holds the arm in place is slowly bending....and expanding our length. With two weeks to go....we may not stay legal.

The wind whipped our hair in our face, and scattered pollen and reeked havoc with our data on fling distance.

It also has appeared to whip up the love and kindness of our neighbors. They have all been calling and arranging the day they can take sweet old ex-neighbor Comer out of his assisted living apartment and drive him to his dear wife Evelyn in the Alzheimer Unit. They will have visitors every day this week it looks like. All of the sweet neighbors have busy busy lives. But they all are carving a heart in the calendar and labeling it Comer and Evelyn.

And they have been walking by and watching the progress of our trebuchet, as we have spent many hours at the end of the driveway, flinging flinging flinging in the wind.
"You know," Josh said, as he placed the "castle" where he calculated our fling would toss our projectile embarrassingly close to the powerful trebuchet, "When I saw the video of the teams that put their castle just a foot away from the trebuchet, I thought how lame they were! And now here we are, putting our castle just a foot away from the trebuchet."
(In our defense, this is only with the lightest counterweight. With the heaviest one we have flung 16 meters.)
"We have worked hard and we have done our best," I reminded him. Don't despise what you can do because you haven't done everything.

When the Israelites were fleeing from the Egyptians, they came to a dead end. The Red Sea stretched before them. There was no turning back, but there was also no escape. It looked like the long road had ended, and hope was gone. But God sent a wind, a most amazing wind. One that opened a path in the impassable waters and showed them a Way they could never in their wildest dreams have anticipated.

And the wind that swirled around our humble trebuchet was the same wind that was swirling around the faded hair of our old friend at the Assisted Living Center as he waited for the good neighbor that would be driving him that day to see his bride.

Exodus 14: 21-22
 ²¹ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²² and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

2 Samuel 22:31

 ³¹ “As for God, his way is perfect:
   The LORD’s word is flawless;
   he shields all who take refuge in him.