Narrow Escape

"Where are you from?  Is this home?" my husband, in his usual friendly way, asked the young waitress as we were eating out last week in the college town of Stillwater. 

"No," she replied, "I'm from Colorado," to which my husband exclaimed, "Colorado! Denver?"

"Yes. Well, actually, Aurora," she went on.  On hearing the name that was on the news not long ago, I asked her if she'd known anyone involved in the recent tragedy there.

"Well, my cousin had planned to go to the Batman movie that night (I think she said he had tickets), but he had to help a friend who had an emergency, so thank God he didn't go!"

Then only last week, I read  a news item on internet that a school bus from Washington County in Tennessee had wrecked, sending some 20 kids to the hospital.  I saw with alarm that it was from  my granddaughter's highschool! A flurry of phone calls and messages followed, and thankfully, I found out it was not her bus.

"But it was Haley's bus!" my daughter told me.  This was the pretty teenager we had met when our grandson introduced her as his girl friend when we were there earlier this year. "She would have been on that bus, but she didn't go to school that day!"

We had been in Stillwater that day having a celebration lunch with our son's family after their adoption of two young daughters that morning.  A couple of nights later, a large group of family and friends gathered for an  adoption party in their honor at the party room of a local yogurt bar.  Over dishes of yogurt and finger foods, we caught up with people we hadn't seen for awhile. 

"How are you liking your job?" I asked a young woman I had known at our former church.  I knew she had recently gotten a degree in her field and had been working part-time in social work, transporting children to custody hearings and other appointments. She told me she had been promoted to case worker. "You must see some interesting cases," I remarked.

"Oh, yes," she commented, shaking her head.  "There are so many sad situations. I was just thinking tonight, these could have been some of those kids, with a much different outcome," she said, indicating the happy scene before us.  "It is so good to see an outcome like this!"

Her words  made me reflect on the scene in the courtroom on adoption day.  The judge had asked the whole family, including the grandparents, to come forward.  He had already emptied the room of others gathered for proceedings that day.  "This is wonderful," he said, waving his arm expansively,  "to see a family like this!"  His appreciation made me realize what a blessing it is, indeed, to be a part of a support team as a family to show forth God's love to the vulnerable.  God had made a way for the helpless, providing what might be again, a narrow escape.