Living on the Edge

I look at the clock.....3:10 AM. I lay back down, my heart wonders whether to pick up its beat, but I breathe deep and it settles back down.....Not time to get up yet. I know I won't go back to sleep, but it is enough that I can lay here for awhile longer. I don't pray, I just turn over. When the small hand approaches four and the big one nears 12 I hit the button before it has a chance to go off.

I turn my phone over face up to check for messages first thing. With folks in their eighties living in another state, you never know....I fear the message, the voice mail...."We took Dad to Urgent Care last night.....or Mom fell." Give us a call when you get up. But there are none. Thank you, Lord.

Not for the first time I panic. How much longer will I have them, and what will my life look like when they are gone? I see a gaping hole where they once were, bigger than life. Always there. "You don't have to worry," my Mom always says, "the Lord is taking care of us." But I do. How can I not?

I hear the morning traffic already churning up for the commute. They sound angry today. I hear a crotch rocket tearing down the road and the sound cuts through my head like a buzz saw. Coffee......oh, I need coffee.

I pull onto the freeway and join the morning communion mass. At 5:00 AM it is not nearly full force yet, but it is working itself up to a fever pitch that will reach its peak around 7 o' clock. I am thankful it is not too bad yet, at this hour.

Help me, Lord......just for today. Just for this 12 hours. I am living on the edge and I never did like the edge. It is stressful at this new place at work. Our little group was thrown in with the big dogs and the heat is being turning up. I think of Daniel in the lions den, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace and I know my little stress is really nothing. But it feels big.

I approach my exit and start to turn off the freeway when I notice a truck trying to speed up and get there before me. "Not so fast buddy," I think. This little yellow bug may look like something Tweety bird would drive, but it has some get up and go......it has a killer overdrive, it floats over 80 mph.

Maybe he feels on the edge this morning too.

About that time, I hear my Dad's voice in my head say...."Everybody wants to be a Nascar driver now" and he's right. But you kind of have to or they will run right over you.

As I pull into the Intel site, I notice a truck ahead of me. It has DVLMAN on the licence plate. Does that stand for Devilman? And why would you put that on your plate?

I guess maybe  for the same reason I put my Jesus sticker on my back window. You have to align yourself with someone. I am just really glad I am aligning myself with Jesus not that other guy.

It is a battle in the parking lot as well, everyone jockeying for the few covered spaces. I didn't get one today.

I turn the car off and enjoy the few moments of quiet before I go in. And  once more, I thank the Lord for being here with me on the edge. I imagine that He's sitting beside me. I feel His arm go around my shoulders as He looks at me sideways and smiles, and I know this promise is true.

For God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you." Hebrews 13:5