For Jordan and Me, Life is Just a Window Shade
Writer Author Billy Coffey
Christian Article
:
Inspirational
- Fiction No
A Tuesday found me, per routine, enjoying my lunch hour with the ducks at a local p ark. That’s where I saw her. A little girl, no more than eight, red-haired and freckled and about ten feet away. I will call her Jordan because that was not her name and that was the way she wanted it. I said hello. Her mouth formed a strange smile that was part sadness and part reluctance. She managed a weak wave.
“I knew you would come,” she said. And then: “You’re him, right?”
“Him?” I wondered aloud.
“The angel,” she said. “The one God sent to help me.”
My first reaction was to laugh, and I almost did. But the smile on her face was gone then and only the sadness and reluctance remained. This was no joke. She was serious. And she needed help.
So, “Yes,” I said. “I’m the angel.”
She studied me, unconvinced, then sat beside me on the bench. “I’m Jordan ,” she said. “Guess you knew that.”
“Absolutely,” I answered her, certain that pretending you are an angel to a little girl who had prayed for one was surely one of the straightest roads to Hell. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
Jordan looked out over the pond. Angels are smart, she said. They know things. And she needed to know something. So she asked God to send an angel to the pond at the park, to the bench where her family would always come after dinner to feed the ducks. Which, I then realized, just so happened to be the bench where I would always come for lunch.
“Does God sleep?” she asked.
No, I told her. God doesn’t sleep. The logical question of why followed, to which I replied that God was too busy watching over her to sleep. He loved her and wanted to make sure she was safe.
God loves me? she asked. Yes. He wants to keep me safe? Yes.
Jordan looked up to me, tears pooling in her eyes. “Then why did God let my mommy die?”
At those words, the world seemed to grow dark. The park, the ducks, the beautiful June day, all seemed to wilt and fade. There was only Jordan , swiping at the tears trickling down her cheeks, and me, struggling to know what to do next.
Minutes passed. I was trying, praying, for an answer. None came.
“ Jordan ,” I said, “I’m not an angel.”
Silence. Then she said, “I thought maybe you weren’t.” I looked down to her and she pointed up to my hat. “Daddy says God hates the Yankees.”
I chuckled. She managed a weak grin. Then her fragile countenance finally crumbled. I wrapped my arm around her as she huddled into the crook of my shoulder and sobbed.
I told Jordan that I didn’t know why God took her mother away, but that He must have had a very good reason. He always does, I promised. One day she would find that reason out. “In the meantime,” I said, “your mom is still alive and she’s in a good place. The best place.”
We both stared at the ducks, lost in our own thoughts. Jordan and I had a lot in common, I decided. Both of us were sitting in a big, dark room of questions. Right in front of us was a window, and streaming through that window was the light of truth, all the answers to all the questions we would ever ask. But drawn over that window was the shade of time.
As we learned and lived, that shade would ease up. A little here, some there. Over time, light would be shed on those things we wanted answered. Not all of them. But some.
We both wanted that shade out of the way now. We wanted to see the whole view, the whole truth. But, you see, if that shade were pulled up all at once and all that truth shone through in an instant, we might well be blinded by the light.
One day, I thought, Jordan and I will meet again. Perhaps along some street paved in gold, beside a crystal sea. She will introduce me to her mother and I will thank her for bringing such a beautiful girl into the world.
After that, Jordan and I will sit down on a bench and share all the answers we will then know. And we will laugh.
Billy Coffey lives in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. He is married with two children, neither of which has ever mistaken him for an angel.
Editor's Comment:
About the Writer Author
State:
Virginia
Country:
United States
Email:
yankeedaydreamin@yahoo.com
Website:
www.billycoffey.blogspot.com
Profile:
Click here!
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