Free The Memory Jar by Tricia Goyer

screamed and screamed, nobody came fer me
. Mem
always told me to think of
gut
things when I have bad dreams, so I thought of God and the stars and my best friend.”
    Patty hurried back to her bedroom and climbed under the blankets. Sarah followed and realized that if she’d had a nightmare, she would have thought of the very same things
.
    She also trembled, thinking how horrible it would be to be lost and alone like in Patty’s dream. Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about that. She could push those thoughts from her mind and fall back to sleep to the sound of Patty’s soft breathing
.

CHAPTER
8
    W ake up, Sarah. Yer jest dreaming,” she whispered into the cold forest. “Jest like Patty used to have nightmares about being lost in the woods, maybe this is jest a dream.” The only problem was, this wasn’t a dream. It was real. Yet knowing that, Sarah also knew Patty’s solution to pushing bad dreams out of her mind would work in this situation as well.
I’ll think of God and the stars and my best friend
.
    So she did that. She thought of God, who was with her now. Who had brought glimpses of peace even when her heart ached most.
    She thought of the stars. So far away, yet glowing because God made them. If he created universes like that, couldn’t he control the bears in one square mile around her?
    And when she thought of a friend, the strangest thing happened — it was Jathan’s face that filled her mind. She hadn’t tried to impress him, instead she was impressed. He was gentle, kind, easy to talk to. He was handsome and full of humor. Why hadn’t she noticed it before?
    Just like with Patty, Sarah hadn’t realized what she needed — whom she needed — until God stepped in. She justhoped God would step in again and help Jathan find her. Deep down, she knew he was looking. “Hello? Help! Somebody!” she called as she had been for the last hour. “Somebody? Jathan!”
    It was mostly dark now because of the storm. Only a gray glow through the clouds told her the sun hadn’t completely gone down. She was frozen. Her skin was numb, and it would only get colder as the night pressed in. Why hadn’t she thought about putting some essentials in her backpack like matches and warm socks and more food?
    She had a few cookies left over from earlier. She’d packed extras for her friends. She ate two and saved one for … for when? Later in the night? Or morning? She hoped it didn’t come to that, but guessed it could. Had the others made it to the driver and the van? Were they heading back to the West Kootenai even now to call for help? Surely they weren’t lost on this mountain too.
    Her guess was they’d already made it down and would call search and rescue, but living in Montana as long as she had, she knew a few things about search and rescue. They had to come from Kalispell, which was over an hour-and-a-half drive away. They also never launched search parties at night, but waited until morning to keep members of their own team safe.
    Sarah looked in her backpack again, as if wishing something else would show up. Even her water bottle was empty. She’d finished that off earlier when she was hiking, thinking she was almost back to the lake and the spring.
    He is with me. God is watching over me. He knows where I am. He’s sending someone to find me even now
…
    As those thoughts looped in her mind, Sarah started to sing as loudly as she could. She hoped it would scare away any wildlife. Or maybe someone on the trail might hear her. But mostly, she hoped it would calm her own pounding heart.
    “Sweet are the promises,
Kind is the word,
Dearer far than any message man ever heard;
Pure was the mind of Christ,
Sinless I see;
He the great example is, and pattern for me.
    “Where he leads I’ll follow,
Follow all the way.
Where he leads I’ll follow,
Follow Jesus ev’ry day.
    “Sweet is the tender love
Jesus hath shown,
Sweeter far than any love that mortals have known;
Kind to the erring