"Even There, Thy Hand . . . "

We have dear friends who through the years have invited us from time to time to join them for a “walk with Papa”. These are usually intentionally unstructured times of just being, watching, and listening that yield a particular sweetness of connection. Little did I know there was a walk that had been prepared for me on my return from Africa--this time Papa’s walk with me. I had added to the end of the arduous transcontinental transatlantic flights a pause of two days in New York City to visit Adelle. But what a measure of help I needed to reenter after almost six weeks in another world, a world precious to me, a world that had moved my heart in deep ways and lingered strongly in my soul.

And I was not just entering America, but entering America through the gate of New York City, Manhattan, and on a Friday night. My heart was full, not raw, but very, very tender and reflective, acutely conscious of the sacredness of the weeks and the holy stewardship I guarded.

Oh, but again, there is no god like our God, no keeper like our Shepherd. I emerged from Penn Station into a warm October rain, soft, gentle, into what felt like a most kind and sheltering darkness enveloping me under my umbrella and causing all the sound and the press of the city to fade, as my God and I walked through the rain together as in a dream. It was a dream so sweet, so tender, so intimate, I felt carried along a path spread with loving preparation, washing, renewing, protecting, hiding, so that I had no desire for a ride and arrived twenty-one blocks later at the candlelit pub where I was meeting Adelle, refreshed, whole, and filled with wonder at an Abba who is such a God of all the earth. He is the God who walked with me in the slums of Koray, and under the shade of the eucalyptus where Eden would stop and exclaim again and again, “Can you feel God! He is here, He is in me, He is in you, He is all around us, in the trees and in the flowers and in the sky!”; who was near in the press and the heat of Dar es Salaam, and the midnight hours over France; and oh! Here He was still, walking the streets of Manhattan on a Friday night.

And there He was in the warm, dark pub brimming with all its lively din, as there were hugs and joy of safe arrival and reunion--and then appeared before me, completely unasked, a bowl of apples and another of walnuts in their shells, my very favorite autumn refreshment, delivered complete with nutcracker by a stoic angel who had until that moment been the rude and stone-faced bartender. Neither Adelle nor I will soon forget that miracle in the Friday-night pub.

But there was even more: my sojourn in Manhattan, this most unlikely bridge between Africa and the remote Atlantic islands, was crowned with an entirely exhilarating tour of Manhattan by bicycle--along the Hudson River, through brownstone neighborhoods and shopping districts and Central Park and Times Square ON A BICYCLE!! I am still laughing and feeling the wind in my hair and worshipping the Father of my heart and soul who is the Lord of all this great earth. If I rise up to the heavens, He is there. If I go to the uttermost part of the sea, He is there. If I take the wings of the morning, even there will I find Him, and will rest in His enormous love.