Sometimes life’s a rodeo: Expect the unexpected

Have you ever felt like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, about to be pummeled through no fault of your own? Have you ever asked, What did I do to deserve this?

An Old Testament king named Hezekiah looked through his window one day and saw the Assyrian army camped outside. The biblical account says, “After all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah” (II Chronicles 32:1 NIV).

Seems unfair, doesn’t it? Hezekiah had been so faithful. How could God let the enemy get so close? What had Hezekiah done wrong, that such a large, seemingly unbeatable force could close in around him?

Hezekiah fell on his face before God and said, “If you don’t save us, it’s all over.”

I’ve seen the same thing at a rodeo.

When my husband was a barrel man, he often went head to head with a big lanky bull called The Grizz. This long-legged monster could step right over Mike’s red and white striped clown barrel and camp on the bullfighter behind it. Or isolate him in the middle of the arena.

One particular day everything stopped, even The Grizz. The bullfighter, down on one knee, looked Grizz in the eye and the crowd knew what to expect.

The big bovine swished his tail to one side, snorted, blinked … and walked off toward the out gate.

The bullfighter leaped to his feet and dashed for the fence, and with one collective breath, the astounded audience cheered.

Maybe ol’ Grizz saw an angel behind the kneeling clown.

That's what happened with Hezekiah: the Lord sent an angel to annihilate the Assyrian soldiers and their king withdrew.

Adverse circumstances can make us doubt that God is paying attention. However, he still intervenes today in the lives of his people - and more important than that is his presence in the lives of his people on an even deeper level than Hezekiah experienced.

The Lord is with us in everything we face and has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV).

The next time we ask, Where are the blessings and benefits? Where are the good times and abundance? How can God let bad things happen? let’s remember that the Lord himself walks with us.

Even though our challenges may be bigger than we can handle, they are never bigger than our God.

Is Moving Across Country Ever Easy?

Which is more painful: a writer separated from pen and paper or one separated from toothbrush and toothpaste?

I guess it depends on how close the writer is to other people.

During our recent move from California to Colorado, I spent two days in the cab of a U-Haul with my husband Mike and our Queensland heeler, Blue. I think Mike would choose the toothbrush. Thank the Lord for convenience stores.

With no paper – and as one of the few diehards who does not own a laptop – I spent the first several hundred miles trying to remember where I put my journal. Either I or dear family members and neighbors who came to my relocation rescue packed it in a feverish rush the afternoon prior to our departure. It must have gone into the same box as my toothbrush.

However, several names and sites along the way were unforgettable:

We crossed Holy Moses Wash in Kingman, Arizona, and in New Mexico passed road signs for Eagle’s Nest, Red River, and Angle Fire. On Colorado’s I-25 a flashing sign warned, “Watch for Wildlife on Roadway.” Not your typical notifications found in the San Joaquin Valley.

The first night I marveled that I could see the stars all the way down to the horizon. And the next morning leading Blue out for relief behind the motel, I watched a Native American couple walk with great dignity from a nearby vacant building, side by side, heads high, their sleeping pad rolled up over his shoulder, her hand in his.

How little I knew of the moving of others.

During the weeks and months of packing, I had thought, “This is hard.” It was hard, but not as hard as it is for some, and I often felt like one of my whinier sixth-graders who always complained of assignments, “This is too hard.”

Unloading and sorting and moving in to our new home were also hard, but I had recently read David’s declaration that God was his helper. “For by You I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall” (Psalm 18:29).

Exhausted each night from heavy lifting, and unfamiliar shifting and shoving, I indeed felt like I had run against a troop and leapt over a wall – but all with God’s unfailing help and the friends He sent our way.

And so I settle into a routine again, gazing out my window across the Arkansas River Valley to the mighty Pike’s Peak and Cheyenne Mountain that brood over Colorado Springs.

Thank you, everyone who helped us and wished us well. We may have moved away, but you remain in our thoughts and in our hearts.