Wonder Under the Moon

Darkness hugged the car as we buckled into our seats and rolled homeward. Like monarchs at midnight, the conversations of the evening floated through my mind. Joy sat in the back, telling us all sorts of things. From what we could understand and what we could guess, she was likely rehearsing her evening as well. In plain English: “Ate popcorn and cheese. Tried to share a chair with my friend and she pushed me off onto the floor. And off the bed. But she said sorry, and she actually was very nice. Colored with markers. Said bye bye.” 

Not unlike my daughter, my own adult mind buzzed through thoughts of our evening at a rapid speed. “What did they think of us? Are we on track? We said such and such. They said this and that. Do we have what it takes? What if we don’t? What if we do?”

We were already home. Jonathan and I finished a sentence we were working on formulating between the two of us as we exited the car. Together, we opened the back door and unstrapped tired little Joy and swung her out of the car. And then...

“Moon, moon!” Joy’s excitement was contagious. Her sweet little neck tipped upwards eagerly towards the night sky, she pointed her forefinger enthusiastically at the shiny shape in the heavens, drawing our attention Up.

The heavens were a beautiful dark black, with sparkles of stars sprinkled artistically across. Orion the mighty hunter poised directly above us, ready to defend whichever constellation should happen to be most in need. And over to the left, shone the crescent slice of silver moon. 

I paused, feeling indebted to the attentive wonder of my little girl. Hands in my coat pockets, head tipped back, I gazed into the skies, until my heart entered into wonder, too. My whirring brain calmed and took a different lane to travel on. 

“Abraham, the man of faith in a God it seems he barely knew, saw those stars,” I thought. “And David, he sat out at night and saw those stars, too, thinking about God thinking about him. Jesus Himself, my Beloved, prayed lonely nights under those stars, talking with our Father. Apostle Paul hid in a basket, fleeing for his life, under these stars. Come to think of it, men and women have actually given their lives to Christ as well as lost their lives for Christ under these stars. Their luminescence has beheld the unutterable wickedness as well as the noble and heroic deeds of the human race. Somehow under these stars I get reminded that I am not alone, and the things I face are not peculiar and specific to only me.”

Orion winked, as if he knew that all along. Joy hollered in delight, “Moon, moon!” I joined my little family in walking towards the little apartment where we are living. 

Somehow, those faithful stars reminded me that the grand scheme of life is a whole lot bigger than this little nomadic mommy and her troubles. Somehow, standing under their twinkles gave me fresh courage to hold onto faith rather than people’s opinions; to gladly yield myself afresh to Jesus. 

Like the millions of faithful ones who have finished their race ahead of me, I can know my God and fully trust Him to never leave me or forsake me. ‘Til moon and stars shall shine no more!

What’s In Your Baggage?

We were snuggled under blankets in the confines of a Delta aircraft cabin, waiting for the last of the passengers to board. The air conditioner vents were blasting, and there was a general hubbub all around as scores of people hoisted their luggage up into the overhead compartments and found their seats. Joy was reading the safety booklet upside down when an urgent voice called over the loudspeaker: “Someone has lost a passport. Look around your seats please and alert us if you see a lost passport. This is very important. Please let us know if you find a passport laying somewhere around you.” Jonathan and I exchanged horrified glances and checked around our seats. 

We could immediately see that the people in front of us were especially worried about the passport loss. “She was sitting right here,” one flustered woman with a colorful scarf explained. “But they took her off the plane, yeah, they took her off already. She said she had the passport when she got on. She doesn’t know what happened to it. Let’s get her suitcase, where’s her bag?” The group of people most interested in the whereabouts of the passport seemed to be Ghanaians who had been living in America for some time, per their accents. I imagined that they had returned to their parent’s motherland of Ghana to visit their family roots and bring back memories to last a lifetime to America. Our hearts ached with them as they were separated from the now passport-less young girl who was forlornly relegated to the outside of the plane. 

A flight attendant helpfully came along and searched everywhere they had just been searching, mid the scrutiny of Miss Colorful Scarf. Next, two airport handymen appeared in yellow neon jackets with screwdrivers and took apart the seat where the girl had been sitting. All to none avail.

As Joy pulled out the Flight Safety Card for the sixth time to look at the cartoon pictures of people sliding down the exit chute, we watched as concerned travelers appeared from various parts of the plane. Obviously, they had starting to wonder if the frequent loudspeaker announcements about the missing passport were connected to one of their own traveling party. Miss Colorful Scarf made sure everyone knew the latest of The Loss and The Search.

As the minutes ticked by, we could tell that the flight personnel were getting close to deciding to leave without the unfortunate young lady without a passport. Miss Colorful Scarf was getting more and more worked up. She pulled down her friend’s luggage and searched it, then after ten minutes repeated the rummaging process. She explained the whole deal to everyone who came up to see what happened. “She was sitting right here on this seat, and they took her off because she didn’t have her passport, and we can’t find it anywhere! Some men even came and took apart the seat to look for it! They took her off the plane!” 

“Well, we can’t find it. We can’t look forever.” The flight attendant who had been very helpful and kind was now gently firm. “We are going to have to stop looking.” 

Moments later, a voice came over the loudspeaker: “Welcome aboard! Thank you for flying with Delta, we hope you enjoy your flight.” Suddenly, a shout exploded from the seat in front of us. It was none other than the flustered woman with the colorful scarf. Her tone was half elated, half dipped in the most woeful chagrin. “The passport is here, everyone. It’s here. I have the passport. It was right here, in my bag.” A flight attendant hurried up, and sure enough, there was the missing passport. “Must have fallen in somehow,” she tried to explain in utter sheepishness, as the entire cabin clapped and cheered, smiling with eyebrows arched high above their mirthful eyes. When exactly the missing passport hopped into the bag of Miss Colorful Scarf will always be a mystery. That was, hopefully, the closest that one young lady will ever get to losing a passport and a flight back to America.

As we taxied down the runway toward the midnight skies, my adrenaline still high from the excitement of the lost passport, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. 

Many times in our human nature we can tell that the gigantic, ridiculously painful problems around us are so obviously caused by other people and their issues. What if perhaps instead of only frantically blaming, we would check through our own baggage to see if therein may lie clues to help solve the problems at hand. Sometimes in sorting through our own baggage we make discoveries that can actually help the others with what they face. Sometimes when we do what we can personally instead of simply blaming others we find answers we didn’t imagine existed.

Thankfully though, it’s not often that a cabin full of people clap and cheer when we uncover mistakes we’ve made.