Of Prayers and Providence

On many topics, my prayers are vague.  When it comes to mind, I may ask for God's protection that day.  If it occurs to me, at the end of the day, I may thank Him for keeping me safe.  But unless I'm doing something like wandering around Cleveland at night looking for a bus station, or traveling on roads that are icy and being blizzard-ed upon, I generally don't really think too much about God's providence in regards to my safety.

Yesterday morning, I did.

Yesterday morning I was scheduled to start my shift at Panera at 8 am.  This starting time always leads to me rejoicing, because it means that I can catch a bus at a stop that's quite close to the apartment rather than my normal one, which is a bit of a hike.

A little before 7:20, I headed out of the apartment and went to cross the road to get to the bus stop, and noticed that there was a police car and two civilian cars pulled over there... right in front of my bus stop!  I hope I'm not going to get in trouble for jaywalking, I thought, not sure that I'd have time to walk the entire way down to my normal stop.  I probably should have been wondering a little more what was going on, but if you've been around me when I first wake up, it's fairly impressive that I noticed the police car.

I crossed the road, keeping an eye on traffic and the pulled over cars and the cop, and headed to the shelter to wait for my bus.  Same as I would without all the drama.

And then I noticed (this realization totally took longer than it should have; see my above note about my mental functioning shortly after waking up.  If you've seen the movie Wall-E, I am basically exactly like him) that the shelter looked a little... odd.

For one thing, it wasn't sitting on its foundations.

For another, one of the huge glass panes/walls had been knocked out and was laying on the ground.

The huge industrial urban garbage can next the shelter had been knocked out of its normal spot and was cracked.  I'm not sure what they're made out of, but they look like cement and rocks, and I'd never considered one of them being broken before.

I did a double take, stepped away from the shelter, and looked at the police car and the other car that was still pulled over.

I wasn't in that shelter when the car hit it, I realized, simultaneously shaken and exuberant.

I could have been.  If my shift had started at 7 or 7:30, I would have been there earlier.  I'm not sure exactly when the shelter was hit, but it probably was around the time I would have been there.

And so that is my story.  Nothing spectacular aside from all the drama that I missed.

Yet the fact that I missed it is more than sufficiently spectacular for me.

Tonight, I'm thinking about the Westminster Shorter Catechism's answer to the eleventh question and Psalm 91.

WSC 11:
What are God's works of providence?
God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions.

Psalm 91:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
 He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
 You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.

 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
    the Most High, who is my refuge—
 no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.

 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
 On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.
 You will tread on the lion and the adder;
    the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
    I will protect him, because he knows my name.
 When he calls to me, I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble;
    I will rescue him and honor him.
 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

La Responsabilité

So, my mom has always been very fond of Le Petit Prince.  I don't think I'm wise enough yet to love it as much as she does, but I already own a Chinese/English version of it.

Anyway, when I saw a book called Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal sitting on the library shelf, I pulled it off, because clearly the author of this book (Conor Grennan) already had good literary references going in his favor.  Plus, it was about social issues in Asia.  What's not to love about that?

It was a good book.  I loved it.

And it made me miss the kids who live at the House of Faith orphanage in Chiang Dao quite fiercely.  Depreena and I only spent a few nights there, and communication was limited, due to my Thai vocabulary consisting of sawadee-ka (hello) and korpkun-ka (thanks), but there was a lot of fun and laughter and love.  I remember a conversation with Mookda as we walked back from our swim time in the nearby dam about how we were sisters because we're both Christians.

As I was thinking about them, and how many places I want to be at all times (you know, back in China, back in Thailand, checking out India, etc) I started thinking about other kids who have been in my life.

Obviously my siblings.  They're my permanent guinea-pigs... stuck with me always learning how to be an older sister on them.  ^_^

But there are a lot of other kids (some of whom are, ahem, not such kids any more.  SOME OF WHOM ARE NOW TALLER THAN I AM!) who I've had the awesome opportunity to get to know and be a part of their lives.  At church camp.  In Aliquippa.  As a camp counselor.  In youth group.  At college.  And, yeah, in China and Thailand too.

Each of them have been in different parts of my life.  Sometimes we got to interact year after year, sometimes only for a couple of days.

And they have all been good gifts to me.

I pray for them, often randomly, as they come to mind.  I stalk them on facebook or google or through friends to try to find out what they're up to.  I hope to cross paths with them again sometime, I hope to hear that they're doing well and flourishing.

Because all of these kids, adopted little sibs of mine -- yeah, I still feel a little responsible for them.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
[The Little Prince]

Jokes and Death (and a few songs)

April 1 is known internationally as a day for practical jokes.  (Trust me, students in China get pretty into it.)  But when I think of April 1, I'm more likely to think of something else -- a call that came eight years ago with the news that "Pappy" Oscar, a man from our church who had adopted us as grandchildren, had died.

He had been diagnosed with cancer only a month earlier.

And every year I'm a little surprised about how much I still miss him.  But I do miss him; I miss a lot of things about him.

I miss how he prayed.  He is one of the few (only?) people I've ever known who used King James English in his prayers without it sounding stilted.

I miss his love.  I remember him teasing me about boys and saying he'd better be one of the first to know when I got engaged.  I miss his hugs, even though my hair somehow always got tangled in his glasses.

I miss his goofiness.  He was incredibly willing to play along with whatever us kids were doing.  Or to instigate mischief if he thought that we weren't creating enough.  Somewhere at home we have pictures of him with a beanie baby duck perched on his head.  We "kidnapped" him and Grandma Millie for Ib's pirate birthday party.  He convinced Abbie that "meringue" was pronounced mher-in-goo.  And he was quick to laugh at himself.

In the month between when the call came that he had cancer and when call came saying that he died, there were a lot of emotions.  I remember a lot of the music that I was listening to around then -- Derek Webb's i see things upside down album, Nichole Nordeman's Woven and Spun album, Casting Crown's Praise You in the Storm, and Natalie Grant's song Held.  Probably because I was listening to these songs over and over and over, they're all still definitely connected with the emotions and thoughts from that time in my life.

Especially Held.

Losing Oscar so quickly hurt in ways that still ache today.  But getting to be a part of him dying in faith was a beautiful thing.

And so, when I think about the collision of things that happen on April 1, I think it is very appropriate.  Because in the end, the joke is on death.  Christ beat it with the ultimate irony -- trampling over death by death.  Or, as John Mark McMillan put it:

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke holding keys
Of hell on that day
The Firstborn of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid Death in his grave.