"We should just ignore people like that and let them yell at the wall for all we care," Laura told me. I hardly saw that as the time for being level-headed. Visions of landing a solid right hook across the guy's nose played in my mind's eye.
"While Laura was still several steps behind me, a man with short graying hair pushed through the crowd and walked right up to me. He looked me in the eye, held up his phone, and asked, 'Is this your wife?' I looked at the picture on his screen. Sure enough. It was Laura with one of the dogs. That's when I put on my angry face."
"We had decided to take a step out of our boat and see if the raging waves would hold us up. That morning outside the supermarket, our feet were still falling—hadn't hit the waves yet—and it wasn't looking like the waves were going to be able to hold us up. In fact, I was wondering if car trouble meant we shouldn't just fling ourselves back in the boat, that is, return home, put our pajamas back on, and spend the rest of the day binge watching Columbo."
"It was me and a dog on a leash traipsing down the sidewalk on Yellow Bucket Street. Me and a dog and the almighty Maker of heaven of earth, that is. He stooped low for those few moments; I felt him, and my mind turned to all the questions I wish he'd answer."
"The image of her clutching the shirt he'd wriggled free from before fleeing Potiphar's house earlier that afternoon appeared like a storm cloud over the horizon of his mind. He could not envision a positive outcome."
Can the future cause the past? When we view God as the Author of the universe, I don't see why not.
"Night descended on the weary wayfarer, and with it came fears of thieves without and shivers from the cold within. Thick clouds hugged the earth and blocked out the moon and stars, and so the man walked down the dusty road beneath his thoughts and the suffocating darkness."
If "there may yet be hope" in the midst of the obliteration of God's people—if even then they can return to the King and find not merely pardon but one who will still their hearts, take up their cause, and fight for them—then perhaps there may yet be hope for you and me even now.
For us, going home to our 75-square meter house normally requires that we hold a stiff upper lip, put on our big boy and big girl pants, and take the plunge.... This time, however, we were heading back home with a rather different perspective.
Once upon a time, during a trip in the country of mountains and minibuses....