Footsteps

Checking out the bedside clock, I noted 6:45 a.m. Hearing the storm during the night, I knew the driveway would be covered with layer upon layer of snow and headed to the large bay window in our living room to check it out. Front yard trees were blanketed with glitter, and the world was white. Enjoying the beauty left by a winter blizzard, my eyes scanned gray skies and wondered what the day would bring. Should I snow-blow or wait? It was then I noticed the steps.




Throwing a quilt over my bathrobe, I headed to the front door, slipped on my winter boots, unlocked the door and ventured out. The wind whipped lightly at the quilt corners as I studied the steps--bigger than mine, coming down the driveway, up to the front door, turning and heading around the house.

Inserting my foot inside the footprint, I followed. One step at a time, I looked up with every step expecting to find someone, my heart starting to stumble inside my chest. The footprints stopped at the back garage door. Ice- crystalled finger prints embraced the door knob. Although I attempted to open the door, I knew it would be locked. I had checked it the evening before as I had all the entries to our house. Afraid but curious, I continued to follow the steps as they trekked the back of our house and up the steps of our deck, back down, and continued around the other side of the house.

My husband had left a ladder against the house last fall outside our bedroom window allowing me to fill the woodpecker holes with caulk. Were those footprints on the ladder rung? 

My heart throttled as possibilities raced through a befuddled brain.

Was someone inside watching me as I explored the outside of my house?

Was someone outside watching me?

Should I go back in?

Should I run to the neighbor's who lived one half mile away?

Why didn't I bring my cell phone?

Freezing in the winter air, I shivered as the accumulated snow in my boots started to melt. Carefully placing my feet inside the on-going footprints, I continued the journey back to the front of the house where the prints stopped in front of a basement window. Here, the snow was swept away as if someone had kneeled or even lay in front of the window. The window itself was smeared with hand prints. Fear overwhelmed me as I slapped myself to the side of the house knowing that an intruder had entered my house! 

I remembered there was a little-used phone in the barn.

I could run there and call 911.
I prayed it would work.

Think clearly, I told myself.

Have a plan.

I started running--slipping was more like it.

Shivering with fright and cold,

a voice boomed out.

Honey, where are you going?

I turned to see my husband at the front door.

 What are you doing???

he demanded noticeably angry with me.

"I. . .  I. . ."

For heaven's sake, get in the house,

 he insisted.

Letting him embrace me and waiting for my heart to settle,
 I asked, 

"When did you get home?"

Early this morning. 
The car--it's stuck down the road a ways.
I walked to the house, 
but realized I didn't have my house key.
I didn't want to wake you, so I got in through a window...

 *****

In Coffee Break With God, pg. 66, Reaching Conclusions,

     Tom Mullen tells about an engineer, a psychologist, and a theologian who were hunting in the wilds of northern Canada. They came across an isolated cabin and knocked on the door. When no one answered, they entered the cabin. There was nothing unusual about the cabin except that the stove, a large, potbellied one made of cast iron, was suspended in midair by wires attached to the ceiling beams.

"Fascinating," said the psychologist. "It is obvious that this lonely trapper has elevated his stove so he can curl up under it and vicariously experience a return to the womb." 

   The engineer interrupted, "Nonsense! By elevating his stove, he has discovered a way to distribute heat more evenly throughout his cabin." 

   "With all due respect," said the theologian, "I'm sure that hanging his stove has religious meaning. Fire 'lifted up' has been a religious symbol for centuries." The three debated the point for several minutes and then the trapper returned. When they asked him why he had hung his heavy potbellied stove by wires from the ceiling his answer was succinct: 'Had plenty of wire, not much stove pipe.'"  

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

1 Corinthians 1:27

****

The first is not a true story--thank goodness.

It was an assignment completed for Alpha Writers.

It would have been scary, if it had really happened.

The second story, although not scary, shows how "off" our assumptions, and, therefore,

    our conclusions can be. As the first story did.

God tells us not to worry.

God tells us not to be too wise.

God wants us to have a child-like faith.

God wants us to ask for guidance--continually--and, then, to trust.

And I will bring the blind by a way that

they know not; 

I will lead them in paths

that they have not known;

I will make darkness light before them,

and crooked things straight.

These things will I do unto them,

and not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:6 

Jesus wants us to walk in his footsteps.

Next week's blog:
The Story Behind the Story