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

Thou Shalt Not Curse at Missionaries

March 6, 2014.Reading time 3 minutes.

After coming home from a service trip to Swaziland a few years ago, I felt renewed, energetic and ready to go again. It wasn’t your average mission trip, we worked hard to prepare a home for abandoned infants, which is a big problem there. I loved every minute of it and started dreaming about another place to go.

You see, I like to build stuff. I’ve been doing it for years and have built almost all of the wood furniture in our house. I’ve finished rooms, our basement, and done some pretty big construction tasks over the years. I even got to build this table that now sits at the missionary house in Heart for Africa. I like to think it will be useful for a good purpose long after I am.

I’m not the guy who is going to go door-to-door or perform street theater – but I’ll pour concrete, remove debris, or swing a hammer. It is wonderful when God marries a talent with a need and grants the ability to go somewhere to serve. When Sudan and South Sudan were splitting apart, I got burdened for the people of South Sudan and wanted to go. That got me started trolling for an opportunity and I found a cool mission group who work with an orphanage there.

I contacted a very nice lady name Rose. Several emails and a few calls later, I learned of a trip with building men like me that was perfect and I began praying about it. I emailed one last question to Rose from my iPad – “Is South Sudan a yellow fever area? Swaziland isn’t and I don’t have that sh-t.”

Whatever I typed, the glorious auto-correct feature from Apple naturally assumed I needed to discuss feces and not an inoculation. I didn’t notice until I got her response and read what I had sent. My mind went into overdrive:

Did I really send that??? To a missionary?? Why yes, yes I did!

Is there a commandment about that? Something about a special place in hell for people who cuss at missionaries?

I thought I should probably let it go, but didn’t want to be ostracized from the trip. So I sent an apology saying, “Obviously, I meant shot.”

I loved her response, “HaHa. I know, I got a snarky giggle out of it.”

Haha, indeed.

Unfortunately, the trip was cancelled due to instability in the country. I’d still love to go there and other places to lend a hand. In the meantime, I’ll watch my words more closely and try to handle surprises that come my way with Rose’s grace and understanding.

Has God married a talent of yours with a need? I’d love to hear about it.