He Sees the Fall of the Sparrow

I have just returned from four days at the FWCC annual meeting (section of the Americas). It was a wonderful time of getting to know new f/Friends, and renewing friendships with old f/Friends. It was wonderful. (Did I say that already?) Really really really wonderful.

I am still too tired to write anything Deep, but I thought I might write about a little thing that happened.

After the official meeting was over, I planned to drive over to Nancy and Brent Bill’s house for a convergent dinner with Friends, that had been organized by Robin. While I was driving that way, my car’s engine began to make a strange rattling noise. I pulled into a local Burger King parking lot, and listened… yep, it was the engine. Nope, it didn’t sound like the sort of noise I wanted to hear 300 miles from home. So, I did what anyone would do. I prayed, and asked God to get me home safe. Then, I went into the Burger King and got a stiff drink. I sat for a few minutes and drank my Coke and browsed through Brent’s new book, The Sacred Compass (which is wonderful) and considered my options.

Finally, I decided, as much as I wanted to go to dinner, I would run straight for home, if the noise was still there when I started the car. I started the car. It was gone. Thank you, God. So I went to dinner and had a wonderful time talking about all things convergent/emergent/Quaker. And I drove home, and the noise didn’t return. This morning, Kevin told me to start the car, so he could hear the noise. And I did, not really thinking it would be there… after all, it hadn’t been there for 300 miles. The engine immediately began to rattle, worse than before. Kevin nodded and started to go down to the warehouse for tools. I said, “It didn’t make any noise at all, after I asked God to get me home!”

He shrugged. “I asked God to make it come back.”

So he fixed it. He says it was the air conditioning clutch that was failing and needed lubricating. Thank you, God, for getting me home safe. Thank you, God, for letting me feel like it might probably be OK to attend the dinner. Thank you, God, for letting the fix be cheap!

This is what I call a “shoelace miracle.” It’s a little thing. A really little and unimportant thing. And not very impressive. But it’s like this: when a three-yr-old goes to his father and holds out his shoe, and asks his father to tie his shoelace, does the father say, “That’s not important enough for me to worry about. Come back when you have something important that you need”? No. The father ties the shoelace. And the kid runs off, and thinks his father can Do Anything. (Which is a scary responsibility for us fallible flesh-and-blood parents). Every time God gives us a little shoelace miracle, we trust Him a little more. He can Do Anything! Even the easy stuff.