Chapter 4
Amazed and Baffled

When Erin was ten years old, her mother decided to plan a trip driving around the United States and then go north through parts of Canada. They’d just sold the family’s beach house so this was how they were going to spend the summer. Ever since Erin had started finding her way back home alone (as you read in My First Love "Closer than a Brother") her favorite place was being at home where she felt safe and peaceful. 

When Erin was older, she also realized this was her nature, the way God designed her, so that later He could use this for good. God formed and created Erin and you, shaping and weaving all your traits together in a secret place, in the safety of your mother’s womb, carefully and skillfully each of us was made!

The skillful way God designs us is so that He might reveal many amazing things others will witness and be baffled about. Those who knew Erin’s nature were the most baffled when God called her to travel around the world many times and actually had no “home” to return to! When people are amazed and baffled, it is when they seek to know God, and we can introduce them to their Savior, the Prince of Peace!

Driving around America was challenging for Erin because for 3 months she didn’t see or talk to her father, who she adored, and she couldn’t be at home where she felt safe. Nevertheless, she didn’t voice her feelings to anyone but her Heavenly Father because she’d learned to trust Him and this increased their closeness even more.

About halfway through their trip, after they’d traveled all the way from the West Coast of California to the East Coast, they got to stay awhile in the tiny seaside town of Ocean Gate—a house by the shore that had been in their family for generations. It was there that Erin had her first experience rescuing someone. No, not spiritually or emotionally rescuing them as you read in On the Rock but physically rescuing a teenager—becoming his only lifeline.