Miracles happen everyday. Believe

                                                     WINDSWEPT    

Dark clouds and snowflakes covered the starry moonlit night.  The car headlights were all I had to illuminate the darkness ahead of me.  There would be no going back.  There was nowhere to turn around on this snowy mountain road.  My nerves were tensed, fingers gripped tight, knuckles white as fear crept over me.

                This was to be a kinship reunion, a thanksgiving pilgrimage to visit family and friends.  It was not a time to think about hopes for tomorrow or to relive memories of yesterday.  I had to focus on what was right in front of me here and now.  I could hear the sound of rushing water from a river on my left and the hovering calls of a screech owl flying high above majestic pines on my right.  These were my only help, all I had to aid me through this forest maze.

                                                                         

                Light pierced the darkness as the sun began to rise on a new day.  Hope replaced the fear.  A screech owl returning home was replaced by an eagle in flight.  The snowy icy unknown became a white pillowy playground sparkling in the sunlight.  Dark clouds became a rosebud offering to the heavens, slowly opening as the sun rose higher and higher.

                                                                            

                A journey, which I had, began at dusk now ended with the dawn.  I had made it through the canyon and was poised at the crossroads at the canyon's end.

                Here at the crossroads was a small gathering of people each going in different directions.  Clustered in the middle was a sight which I have never seen before.  All the trees in a small gully were severely windswept, some bowing almost to the ground from the harsh canyon wind beating against them.  I looked at the trees and then I looked at the people here at the crossroads.  Some of the people looked at the trees turning their heads first to the right then to the left with a look of aspiration on their faces.  They looked as thought they wanted to jump right out of their cars, pick up those trees and make them stand up straight.  Other people looked at the trees with a fleeting glance, turning away pretending not to have noticed the trees.  There was one man among them who seemed different.  He had a look like that of a carpenter about him.  His eyes were warm and caring, and he had a smile of acceptance on his face as he looked at the trees.  To a carpenter these trees are a treasured find.  Shaped by the winds of adversity, the heartwood and annual growth rings showed richness in their woodgrain.  A carpenter would take these trees just as they are and use them to work his will.

                I asked a woman for directions but she only looked at me.  I was from the hills a mountain person and she was from the valley.  She looked at me first this way and then that way with a look of aspiration on her face as though she wanted to pick me up and make me stand up straight. I asked a man for directions.  He gave me only a fleeting glance pretending not to have noticed me.  The hurt and pain I felt from these people was replaced by peace and love as I remembered a carpenter who saw in me something the others had missed.  He saw in me something uniquely different not strangely different.  He alone would take me just as I am and use me to work his will.

                With our Thanksgiving feast over, memories renewed, my heart and stomach full, I left my Thanksgiving reunion to go back home.

                It was nearing dusk as I pushed past the windswept trees and headed back up the canyon.

                The storm having past, moon and starlight replaced the sunlight.  An eagle returning home was replaced by a screech owl in flight.

                I stopped at the edge of the echoing hills, opening a window I called out a soft salutation to the hills and to the heavens.  A gentle stirring inside me was felt as an affirmation came back to me.  Bouncing off surrounding hills ands trees into the stillness inside me I heard and felt the words 'I love you' returned.  Teardrops now replaced snowflakes as I felt my spirit being windswept.

Lori Weidenbacher