Breathe, Part Three: Sent From Heaven Above

After my beloved hubby bless/kisses me goodbye around 6:30 in the morning, I often snuggle under the covers one hour more. Then like a trumpet reveille, our Timex radio blares Family Life Radio music. This June morning I beat the alarm and sat up, a Bible and devotional book beside me as dashing MBH kissed me, surprised. In a throbbing migraine, I struggled to verbalize an old off-Broadway show tune God played in repeat in my thoughts: 

We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land/

But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand...*

When he left, I took up my laptop, turned off Wi-fi connect. Time to take a deep breath to share Almighty's hand in events one early evening mid spring.

On the road up from my childhood home, Mommy screamed. Suddenly, the side of a parked Tundra truck was a foot from my face. I stared in disbelief at the driver’s side mirror dangling from a twist of wires. My youngest sister’s hybrid console binged incessantly that keys were in ignition. Try I might, the driver’s door would not open for even a snake to slither out.

Over the smartphone my husband's voice reassured me from faraway Deep South. A hook and ladder drove up just as my second youngest sis pulled me over the seat console and out from the passenger’s side. Mommy's neighbors stood on the driveway, clutching unlit cigarettes. A young man covered my shivering frame with a puffy comforter. Then the truck's owner emerged from the house with a glass of water—for me!

His wife told me they were waiting for others to arrive for her birthday outing.  Mom and I were on a quick errand, as I had invited Sisters over for home-cooked Filipino dishes. The sisters who arrived on scene got uninjured Mommy home first, then me after the policewoman left. They would handle the cleanup.

On my mom’s driveway, I watched my shaky fingers fumble on the phone screen. Thank God my eldest son, Miguel, answered. Thank the Lord for the years my son worked in customer service quality control.

Miguel listened well to a panic of what ifs, mom hysteria, and verbal self-immolation. Like a great physician, he determined that I was sore and in shock. He had me do stretches, then had me drink more water. We chuckled as he realized aloud that water wasn’t good for someone in shock. Then his voice nudged me to my old bedroom's sleeper sofa where I elevated my feet and collapsed.

Phone records show my eldest stayed with me for 52 minutes. An hour of powerful mercy, Miguel calmed me. He breathed measured inhales and exhales alongside me. Oh so like his father breathed near me decades ago, as God sent Miguel into our world.

Such is the way of our Heavenly Father, to send the gift of a son into the world. In sacrificial love the Lord gave His Son, the only Son of God...

begotten, not made, 

of one Being with the Father

Through him all things were made

For us and for our salvation

 
he came down from heaven: 


by the power of the Holy Spirit 


he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, 


and was made man. 


For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 


he suffered death and was buried. 
On the third day he rose again…**

Oh thank the Lord in song:

* Steven Schwartz, Godspell

** Council of Nicaea A.D. 325, Nicene Creed