History Lesson!!

In my entire education (all 17 years worth!!) I learned a lot about the Civil War, but I never heard about any revival occurring in the churches in both South and North. Recently in researching material for us to study in our homeschool, I came across a couple of references to the amazing explosion of faith that took place during the Civil War, beginning in both armies. Apparently because of the influence of Godly leaders on both sides (if you want an entertaining evening, watch the recent movie, "Gods and Generals"), many soldiers and subsequently families of soldiers came to or came back to a deep faith in God and His will. You can discount this if you will to the old cliche, "There aren't any atheists in foxholes" but in reading further it was astonishing how widespread and apparently deeply felt this revival was. Since my first notice of this idea, I have run across it in several other unrelated sources. A devotional in my daily book was a reading of several conversion stories between 1863 and 1865 in the war camp; I ran across a book title I since ordered from Vision Forum called Christ In The Camp solely devoted to telling these stories; I found a reference to this book and its material in World magazine.
Despite the reasons I never heard about this in school (that is a topic for another time!), I am so glad to learn about it now; it reinforces the idea that God always is creating something from nothing; good from bad; everything, despite its tendency toward chaos, has the potential for good. Don't you know this drives the devil nuts??? Don't you know he is always racing to get as much bad out of a situation as he can before God's way gently intervenes again and takes over for the good?? Even in the middle of a horrendous war, one that split families as well as a country, there was a small but potent explosion of people turning freshly to their God and carrying that attitude with them for the duration. After the war the survivors took this fresh outlook home & we are probably still reaping the rewards for their wartime conversions. I am so thankful to be serving a God who can always make good out of bad, no matter how bad!! It makes me feel so hopeful toward these uncertain times we are living out; unrest on every continent as well as discontent here at home - economies wobbling on the brink of total chaos - all kinds of immorality flaunted in every possible form - makes me look again for the good that God will inevitably bring from the bad. That is just who He is - He cannot help it. Praise Him!!