I’m about to celebrate a
birthday, which has directed my thoughts to all that transpired since the last
one. Last year, on the day after my birthday, there was a vote which led to a
church split, which is a significant event for church staff members and their
families. Then we had a fire. Then my husband died.
It’s been quite a year.
The fact that the path my
life has taken has been so hilly and full of curves has made a recent series of
events seem even more interesting than it might have been otherwise. Here’s the
story.
Dan’s sisters kindly invited
me to join them on a trip to Yellowstone , so I
gratefully packed up my tent. My oldest son was able to join us and flew into
town so that he could drive my car. He had a couple of audiobooks and a variety
of music for us to listen to along the way.
We traveled with the
others and were usually following rather than leading. As is often the case
when exploring a new area, getting from Point A to Point B sometimes required
turning around. At one point, just as the lead car was stopping to reverse
direction, the singer we were listening to sang “Turn around.” We laughed at that, and turned around.
The next day we found
ourselves once again unsure of the route. We found it amusing that, as we were
wandering about, the music asked “Where are we?” and added “There are
mountains.”
Those who’ve been to Yellowstone know the excitement of seeing animals in the
wild. They also know that the excitement is sometimes tempered with impatience
at the traffic jams caused by people stopping in the middle of the road. We
were following a car that slowed to watch some buffalo. At that moment, the
lyrics coming through our car’s sound system were “Don’t slow down.”
We got a kick out of this
narration of our trip. As we headed for home, though, things got even more
interesting.
Although we had arrived by a
different route, we decided to return by the roads that took us through the
Tetons and near the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming Jackson
The strangest incident
occurred later that day. We continued our drive through Wyoming ,
passing through the Wind River valley. We
wondered aloud whether to pronounce it with a short vowel sound or long, unsure
of whether the river was named after a breeze or the circuitous route it took. We
got our answer. We were listening to an audiobook about an astronaut stranded
on Mars. The narrator began discussing a battery—a battery made by the Wind
River Company (pronounced with a short vowel sound, by the way). The Wind River mentioned in a book about Mars? My son and I stared at each other in
amazement.
There was one day left on
our trip. By this time I expected a narration moment and I got one. We had been
listening to music and I had been falling asleep. I didn’t want to sleep
through the end of the book, though, and I knew we needed to start listening to
it soon if we were going to finish it before we got home. As I tried to rouse
myself so that we could make the switch, the singer sang “I’ll try to stay
awake.”
Was all that
coincidence? Some will say so, but that’s
not how I see it. I think a merciful God was simply saying, “I see you, Martha.
I’m with you on this journey.”
I have no idea what this
next year holds. There could be more disasters or a miraculous healing. There
could be both. Whatever comes, though, I’m confident that God is with me.
He’s with me on this journey. He's with you, too.
