A Possum in My Bed

March 10, 2014.Reading time 6 minutes.

I love my truck. When I bought it a decade ago, I didn’t know how much I would love it. The first week I had it, I bought one bale of pine straw every day just because I could. It was so much nicer than trying to shove four bales in the hatch of my old Pathfinder.

I’ve ceded the garage to my daughter and my poor truck has to stay outside in the woods. I often find a stray branch or pine cone that has fallen in the bed overnight, but nothing prepared me for my discovery this morning. This morning I found a possum in it – an angry possum.

I didn’t notice anything back there until I got halfway to work and heard something banging around. When I parked it at the office, I took a look and found him in there. He hissed at me, obviously blaming me for the predicament. I tried to reason with him. I told him I didn’t know he had come along. But he just hissed at me and stalked me around the perimeter of the truck bed with what can only be described as very angry gestures. Having no idea what to do, I considered dropping the tailgate and letting him go. But that didn’t seem wise as I would have been in the path of his escape. Also, I work near the interstate and didn’t want to just leave him there, away from home in a new dangerous place. What if possums are territorial and I drop him off in Braveheart Possum’s domain? He’d get his poor, furry butt kicked. What if it was a momma with babies at home and I separated them for life? I’m no zoologist and don’t know if how to tell the difference between a boy and a girl possum short of a close examination and that didn’t seem like a good plan.

So I decided he or she needed to go home. Surely a day in the bed of a truck wouldn’t hurt. We have an office cat, so later I stood out of harm’s way and threw some cat food back there as sustenance for the day. I don’t think he touched it but he didn’t throw any back. I took that as a good sign.

When the work day ended, he was there and we had a nice drive home. I had a stroke of genius on the trip and when we arrived, I retrieved a VERY LONG limb and placed it into the bed so that the end of it stuck out. He climbed it and was gone in a flash. Fortunately, he wanted nothing to do with me. He hissed once, for good measure, and scampered off.

I am reminded that sometimes I feel like I am in the bed of God’s truck. There have been many times where I can’t see over the sides and have no idea where God is taking me. But there are things I can trust about God that the poor possum couldn’t rely on with me.

1. God has a perfect plan, while my plan for the possum was dubious, at best.
2. He knows the exact direction I’m going and planned it long ago.
3. He loves me relentlessly, whereas I had only a slight bit of compassion for the possum.
4. I’m not in the truck bed by accident or because I slipped out of a tree, I am right where God wants me.

I worry when I’m in the back of God’s truck. Mostly, I want to know where we are going and how long the trip is going to last. Instead of trusting the driver, I hiss and try to make my own plans to get out.

Psalm 46:10 says:
Be still, and know that I am God

I find that very easy when I am behind the wheel. Lord, give the peace to be still when I’m in the bed of the truck.

*This post was written on March 10th, 2014, while I was pondering a career change. Thirty days after I published it, I began a true journey in the bed of God’s truck as Kylie was diagnosed with the cancer that would claim her life. I am still riding blind and may be for the rest of my life. But every once in a while he allows me a glimpse at the map of this wild ride and I sit back and hold on tight.

Photo credit: anddoesitexplode via photopin cc

Type Twice, Save a Life

February 18, 2014.Reading time 4 minutes.

Back in the day, there were these two brothers, Tom & Andy, who I really looked up to – the eldest especially. I remember they lived in my neighborhood, both drove motorcycles, and worked on old cars and motorcycles in their yard, where I got to be the wrench monkey. Tom played keyboard in a band and had that awesome 70’s hair, perfectly parted in the middle with wings. When they fixed up a bike, they would power up and down the street while I would sit under a tree and watch, dreaming I was on the bike.

One glorious day, Andy invited me on. It must have been forbidden by his brother, because he waited until Tom wasn’t home. We went around the block then onto the dirt ball field of the school yard where he told me to hold on. Only I didn’t hear him. So when he popped up on one wheel, I flew off the bike onto my backside. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt much. I was up and dusted off by the time he circled back. I remember distinctly Andy asking me if I was okay, then swearing me to secrecy as we walked back to his house. I’ve not ridden a motorcycle since. I don’t think I’m afraid of them, just never had an opportunity or desire (I haven’t climbed in a shark cage or run with bulls, either). As a driver, I do watch out for motorcycles. I respect the signs and stickers that say, “Save a Life, Look Twice, Motorcyles are Everywhere.”

My Lovely Wife has had a tough year leading an organization at our kids’ school. I won’t bore you with details, suffice it to say, the children have been delightful. A few days ago, she received a rather curt text related to her office and read me her reply. I asked her to read it again. When she did, she decided it was a little harsh and we talked about how to change it. Look Twice, Save a Life. Or maybe a relationship – even if it is precariously dangling off the back of a speeding motorcycle.

I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years, which would come as a shock to some. If you could see my elementary and middle school report cards, the comments would almost all say: “Mark needs to think before he speaks”. It’s like there was a conspiracy between them – or possibly a pattern of behavior. I’m voting conspiracy. Now that I’ve matured (some), I actually have a pretty good verbal filter. I also often type replies to texts and emails and reread them before I send them. You can type what you really want to say as long as you don’t push send. I have now learned to not put a name in the email header just in case you push send out of routine before deleting the anger. Yeah, I did that once and it was kinda ugly.

⁶Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Colossians 4:6

A modern day application of this is our non-verbal speech: text, email, IM, and others. It is actually easier to saltify than speech since we have the chance to preview before sending. Has your first draft ever needed some grace salted in? Did you send or type twice?