The story of our friends' grown daughter's death in an auto crash two years ago moved us deeply, and since then, when I have been driving past the spot on our local road where it happened, I've thought about it a lot.
I've thought about the things my friend told me - the county fair, the drunk driver coming out and swerving into the wrong lane, the school building next to the fair, the beloved grade school teacher out on errands - her death, the stories her mother told me about her, her favorite Scriptures, and the timing of it all.
It became part of my mental map and my picture of the story of our community.
When our friends shared this past Easter Sunday their testimony of how the Lord has given them hope even through this sorrow, it deeply moved me again. More pieces of the picture fit together. I was overwhelmed by the sense of God's timing and care in what otherwise could be called nothing but a hideous tragedy.
Maybe it was remembering that her favorite Scripture verse was from Psalm 91 that began to bring the images that formed this poem.
Sheltered
“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” - Ps. 91:11
“carried by the angels to Abraham’s side” - Luke 16:22
The heat waves shone on Route 11
And music from the fair
Mixed with the hum of traffic
On that afternoon.
Unseen beyond the shimmering dust
And glare, a crowd of white winged ones
Hovered intent above the road
Between the fairgrounds and the school.
“You’ll want to stop that truck,” one had been told,
“you’ve watched her well, swift, faithful one.
But this time you will let it come,
Because today she’s coming home.”
The man who swaggered toward his truck
To slam the gas and swerve hard drunk
Did not know of that winged crowd, or of the daughter
He was sending home.
But they were waiting,
Silent and prepared.
No seconds passed between the crash
And their swift hold upon their trust -
“We’ve got you dear heart, all is well,
You’re coming home.”
Past treetops, cloud tops, galaxies
And time, they carried her and laid her safe
Inside the walls of home, and waited for
Their Lord’s ‘well done.’
There, in the light of that loved Face
No doubts, no ‘why?’ could dwell.
Only the swelling song that drew her in,
And further inward into its high joy - “Glory to Him!”
