Mist softened all angles, subdued colors, and quieted the
roadside landscape. Mystery veiled
fields ripe for adventure. We drove on
an Impressionist’s canvas, my son and I, towards the launch site, caramel
truffle coffee filling the car with fragrant steam. While crossing a wooded finger of the lake my
phone rang, informing us to meet at a new location, Hewitt Park. Events unforeseen, fog and keys locked in the
pilot’s truck, reset the hour and site of departure.
A runner moonwalked backwards round the perimeter of the
park. Meanwhile, my son and I waited for
balloonist and passengers. He listened
as I talked of how it feels to fade appropriately into the background of my
adult children’s lives, graceful, alone, thankful. I explained that in new day’s mist, isolated
unto God, my eyes of faith open wide on realms of promise and possibility. Then we talked again of the hawks, “prayer
triggers,” reminding me to intercede for my grandsons, and of how many we had
both seen in a few weeks time. Oh the heart
of God for these boys!!
My daughter and her husband pulled up behind the balloonist,
and we all stood round and watched as an enchanted carriage took shape out of a wicker
basket, yards of fabric, and warmed air.
We gazed mesmerized into the animating balloon, swelling round with
invisible gravity-defying breath.
Preparation for flight took a little longer than usual as the balloon
had the day before undergone inspection and been hastily packed away. Minor delays and interruptions affecting
flight path, God-planned details. And so
as a cool January breeze blew upon the warmed balloon it set sail on an
uncharted voyage (humanly speaking!).
Over creek and forest, highway and lane, neighborhood and
field, the balloon drifted magical across the sky. Her shadow traced a God appointed path across
the landscape. Friends of the passengers
later remarked they had seen them on their way to church soaring colorful. Twenty minutes into the flight, my daughter
attempted a panoramic of the view below with her new I-Phone, a birthday
present received the day before. Like
sand in an hourglass, the phone slipped from her grasp, plunging many stories
into a wooded area bordered by fields.
The flight continued, and after a celebratory mimosa following safe landing
beside the Overlook, we determined to believe God for yet another miracle.
We drove and took the exit near where the phone dropped,
searching for an entry point into one of the fields bordering the cedar
thicket. No trespassing signs forced us
to walk beyond where we parked in search of an opening. Tall weeds and brush surrounded this side of
the field, but undeterred we cut a path through and soon entered the plowed
field, aerated, damp, and spongy. Across
furrow and hill we traversed sinking in mud, the “forest” looming ahead. Thankful to have made it to the edge of the
woods we talked of searching to the right of where we stood, fanning out to
individually look for the phone. Of
course the tiny patch of woods viewed from above now stood tall, thick, and
spanning ominously who knows how many acres in front of us, faith-defying!!
I repeated to myself my word for this year, “BELIEVE,” and
forged ahead at a snail’s pace. In fact
a snail would have fared better in a forest so dense with low-lying prickly
branches and abusive undergrowth. Small
clearings were few and far between. And
after several minutes of covering only a few yards, likely walking in circles,
I exhorted myself, “Hope against hope!!”
I looked up for guidance. I
looked down to ensure no snake had found me.
Then I looked around for a tiny phone lost in a big wood, and for a
glimpse of family to reassure myself I wasn’t as alone as I felt in that moment
and location. I ended up calling for my
son, and gave up searching solo. He
pointed out that we were standing along a fence line, and suggested we separate
by about six feet combing the area parallel to each other. Dead ahead stood a giant of a tree, ten feet
in diameter, unyielding branches barring my passage. Obstacles, delays, time spent strategizing,
all determining future steps. I ended up
following my son who soon met up with my daughter. He had been calling her number repeatedly to
try and guide us to the lost phone. She
remembered silencing her ringer the night before, and that the phone was all but
out of batteries. At this point, we all
undeniably understood finding the phone would be sheer miracle.
Two seconds later, my daughter praying continually, “Am I
getting hot or cold, Lord,” spied something white!! Could it be her pearly white phone?? She reached to recover only a piece of
Styrofoam. However, my son looking in
the same direction spied something silver, her phone shiny-side up
a few feet away!! He picked it up and turned
it over revealing seven missed calls, and not a scratch or blemish on its
surface. We gave a shout of praise to
Jesus who led us to the phone in less than thirty minutes, with breadcrumbs of
grace, allowing for the search to go on only long enough to delight us in His
goodness and humor and love!!
Turns out the phone failed to video the view on descent to
earth, but we nonetheless all enjoyed a breathtaking panoramic of God,
invisible made visible, like the air that lifted that balloon above the
treetops, wind borne on wind. We planned
how to tell such a fantastic story to family back home over Sunday lunch. Unaware of the gratitude threatening to
explode from our hearts, Joe the cook prepared a traditional Thanksgiving feast
with all the trimmings!! God, like us, just
couldn’t keep His glory hidden.
He rearranged plans, celebratory meals, gift-giving,
timing, weather, orchestrating an in-flight phone drop.
Undoubtedly, He intended
delight, both His and ours!!
Amazed in His Shadow,
Terry and family
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