God's Time

This story will take far longer to tell than the events it recounts, still – it’s worth telling. It was a hectic morning, one of those days when one hopes to get more done than time and logistics will allow. The client’s cancellation would give me a chance to dash over the hill to fit in the much needed errand and that might actually give me a little time amid a far too crowded schedule to take a breath. 

It was my fault. I knew it. It was I who far too often stuffed my mornings with visions of getting things done.  The crowd of errands jostled for priority in my head. I laid them out in my mind and assembled them like a tag team to flow together so I could check each off - circling the city while moving down the list. 

Imagining a flawless sweep of success, I had already congratulated myself that morning. Then the phone rang and my plans tumbled in on themselves like a towering pile of packages. A morning client had canceled. Suddenly a tiny space opened. Time to reconfigure and make a dash. 

The ancient, much feared rule of rushing decrees that the shortest distance between any two points on a clear and spotless weekday is almost always under construction. I should have known. When the orange safety cones appeared funneling us into a single lane, I swore. Great! At this rate I’d not only not make it to the errand on time, I’d be late and the whole day would be thrown off. I’d never get things back on track. I chaffed at the forced delay. Damn it! I squirmed and I huffed and I snarled. And then,.. thinking about the absurdity of my annoyance, I smiled. Finally I laughed right out loud. There I was sitting completely trapped in traffic, all my self-important visions of running the universe curtailed by a simple path of silly orange plastic. I shook my head and chuckled. “Okay, God, I get it: You’re in charge.” 

The cones eventually cleared. I finally reached the intersection. The signal was about to turn. Here was my chance to punch it and sail through on the yellow light. Get back up to speed and onto my day! But I’d already learned the lesson. Instead, still chuckling at myself, I looked and decided to settle down peacefully and wait just where I was. 

The pickup truck carrying his heavy load of metal pipes and wooden beams approached the same street, crossing from my right at exactly the same moment. He was minding his own business and still a full car-length from the intersection when he hit his brakes to slow for the light. The sky before me suddenly exploded with missiles of pipe and timbers sailing off the roof of his cab.  They shot over the truck’s cabin and arched through the air crashing into the space where I was headed. The driver, his mouth still open, turned in slow motion towards me. We stared at each other in shared disbelief,.. stunned with the awareness of the tragedy that should have been there. He blinked. I did as well. We each looked over our hoods at the spot in front of us where I would have been. It was now a war zone of twisted metal and splintered timber. 

The light turned green. The car behind me honked. I took a breath.

“Thank you, God.” 

I slowly pulled out into the street and carefully make my way around the field of debris. 

My list was gone. The day re-ordered. The most precious event of the day: the tragedy that didn’t happen. “Thank you, God.” I said, grateful to be right where I was - traveling on God’s Time and making it mine.