My Help Comes from the Lord

By Anna Isaacs, 12th grade

For a school assignment, I was to write several paragraphs on what was going on in someone’s mind during a certain situation. I chose to write on a young man attempting to escape a concentration camp in a Communist country. – Anna

He crouched in the darkness, his heart beating wildly.  The border lay just ahead, the barbed-wire fence shining in the moonlight.  This was it.  Tonight was his only chance.  It was now or never.  His eyes followed the two guards as they walked the fence line.  He knew that if they saw him, they would shoot.  “When you make the break for it, whatever you do, don’t stop, for any reason.  You stop, you die,” the man had told him. 

Taking a deep breath, he fixed his eyes on the section of fence directly in front of him.  The wire there was just loose enough for him to squirm under to freedom.  Freedom.  The word itself sent shivers down his spine.  But the risk was so great.  Fear gripped his heart as he thought of getting stuck trying to slip under the wire.  But as he looked up at the moon shining so brightly, he remembered the words of the psalmist, and whispered them into the night.  “I lift up my eyes to the hills; where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  He will not allow your foot to slip…the Lord is your keeper…the Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul.” 

The guards faded out of sight into the trees.  He had only 15 seconds before they turned and came back.  Only 15 seconds to run across the clearing, squirm under the fence, and run to the safety of the woods on the other side.  He stood up.  “Help me, God,” he prayed.  And then he ran.