For a couple weeks now, a picture has been floating in my head… this little boy, red boots, red jacket, green hat… standing on the edge of a frozen highway… alone.

It’s one of those life snapshots I’ll never forget.  The picture, the sounds, the circumstances are as real to me this moment as they were back then… the day we crashed our big truck on the way to Alaska.  I wrote about that here .

So, I am stuck in the cab… Doug, hanging upside down, is trying to pull me up.  Ian’s screams from the highway are so loud it was as if he had a megaphone to his lips.  In spite of the distance our eyes were locked tight.

I couldn’t physically reach him.  But I felt if I didn’t take my eyes from his, I could will him not to slip backwards onto the road, will him not to slip down the ravine with the truck, will all danger away from him.

Reality of this world says I could do none of those things, but at that moment I had to believe I could.

I needed him to keep looking at me.

Jesus is walking on water.  Peter and the rest of the guys are in the boat, fearful of the storm.  (I’m loosely paraphrasing here as I’m sure the word “guys” cannot be found in any translation)  Peter said he would walk on water to Jesus if it really was “Him”.  Jesus said “come” and Peter walked.  He actually walked on the water.  But then he looked at the choppy sea, felt the wind, got scared and started to sink.  Jesus rescued him asking “why did you doubt?”

So now I’ve got this story in my head… and that little boy’s picture in my heart.  And I think I know what’s going on.

Frightened by the unknown, confused by what I hear, I’ve been yelling to Him thru the megaphone ~ ~

“Are You sure about this?”

“I don’t understand… aren’t I supposed to understand by now?”

“I don’t think I’m doing this right”

And every time I ask those questions, plus oh, so many more… I hear – –

“why do you doubt?”

“keep looking at me”

“keep looking at me”

“Keep.  Looking.  At.  Me.”

Why do I always forget that?  He leans towards me with grace and I look everywhere else but straight ahead.

Today I lock on the laser vision… and pray I remember to do it again tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, after we were rescued, and as we pulled away from the sorry sight of our truck and earthly goods left behind, Ian started waving.

“are you waving at our truck?”

“no, waving at my angel.”

We all smiled, “so… the truck is your angel?”

“NO!” looking exasperated at how we could be so blind…”my angel sitting on truck!”

And there you have it… believe it or not.

I do.