Prayers, and the Space/Time Continuum

"those who travel the road"

Job 21:29

So we're home from our vacation.  Five states, three National Parks, and I don't know how many miles on the ole family truckster.

We've seen some beautiful, amazing things, which I'll share soon, but today, as we drove home, my heart was full of anxious prayers.

You see, while we saw a great many things on our travels, the traveling was rough.  Though the Apple of my Eye had the car serviced, and new tires put on before we left, we had more than our share of travel woes.

#1 ~ On the second day of our trip, we got a flat tire, on an out-of-the-way road just outside a fairly rural town.  And the limited selection of tires available in that town, along with the fact that our car is all-wheel-drive, and we were going to be driving on mountain roads, necessitated that we replace all four tires, not just the injured one.

So, a handle-able problem, but a bit of a blip on our vacation fun.

#2 ~ Three days later, just as we were entering Yellowstone, while I had my eyes glued to the window, enjoying the mountain view, I heard my sweetie say, "Now what??"  I looked over to see that the "Service Engine Soon" light on the dash was lit up.

"Now what?" indeed!

The light had first showed itself a few days before we left home.  The Apple of my Eye took it in, and they replaced a part, and we thought everything was fine.

Clearly, it wasn't.

We got to our campsite, ate dinner and bedded down for the night.  And the next day we drove the car to one of Yellowstone's very-necessary auto repair locations.  Fortunately, it was a simple problem, and a short while later, two very nice repairmen had us back on the road to Old Faithful.

#3 ~ Additionally, our car seems to have a very slow coolant leak.  The mechanic has not been able to find any problems, but the car has a tendency to require coolant a little more often than we think it should.

But that's okay.  He'd brought coolant along, so we'd deal with that if the warning light came on.

Needless to say, we were thinking about the car more than we wanted to.  And on the final day of our trip, as we drove several hours home, I was in prayer.  I was grateful to God for getting us safely everywhere we wanted to go, and I was praying those blessings would continue until we reached our driveway.  We had a long way to go, across the Nevada and California desert, in temperatures that reached 119 degrees. 

But while I was praying, I wasn't just praying for us.  I was praying, too, for other drivers.  Over the course of several hours, we saw several cars pulled off to the side of the road.  There was no way to tell if they had engine trouble, or if they just needed to make a phone call or something, but I knew there was a significant chance they were in exactly the pickle we were hoping to avoid.  Most everyone has cell phones of course, and the Highway Patrol is a pretty frequent presence, so I knew that help would be coming soon, but still, I felt for them.

And you know who else I was praying for?  You won't believe it.  It's silly, I know, but it was sincere.

I was praying for the pioneers.  I was thinking about those men and women who braved the elements, cold and hot, looking for adventure, a better life, or simply a new frontier.  They traveled with not enough equipment, not enough food, and not enough protection from the elements. 

Oh, and they were traveling in wagons, pulled by horses.

So here I was, in 2014, sending retroactive prayers to those courageous, amazing Americans.  They had been exactly where I was ~ across those same deserts; over those same mountains.  They were anxious and trusting, fearful and excited.  And many of them prayed fervently to the same mighty God who heard my prayers today.

It seemed a little odd, even to me, to be praying for someone who lived a century and a half ago, but I know that God is outside time and space.  And maybe it wasn't even praying, per se, as much as being with them in spirit.  But He knew, when those pioneers crossed those deserts, that someday I would be thinking about them, and wishing them the best, and I like to think He joined my prayers to theirs.

And why wouldn't He?  He's just that powerful, and just that loving.  Awesome.

~ "For He shall give His angels charge over you,

to keep you in all of your ways" ~

Psalm 91:11

~