Send Me, Lord

Sometimes, during the course of this journey—down this sometimes-snow-covered trail in this season I am in, it is hard to see the path. Sometimes, I feel I have been on it long enough thank you very much and want to go—anywhere else-even Home.

It’s not that I am alone. Most of the time I don’t mind being alone. I can fart in bed for one thing. Wear the same socks two days in a row—even on Lawn Cutting Day. I do two laundry loads a week—one white and one colored. I can eat nothing much, for several days in a row. A salad taken home from Wally’s, a pub which you stop off at when you get to Heaven, will last me three days. When the dogs get a drink of water, they drizzle on the floor and I may or may not clean it up.

And I can write.

And have.

But as I look forward, down the path, I have stopped wondering what will come. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still think sometimes if this dumpster fire of vanity and wokeness and leaders of countries with shaved temples and $3 for a cup of coffee with end. I already know the answer.

We all do.

So, now what?

A memory, an image, it seems, from another life ago, comes in to view—part of the family went to an Army base in Missouri to collect my son from basic training camp. It actually was a nice trip, pretty country, got to the top of the Gateway Arch in a claustrophobic egg. We got to see him graduate. It was a great moment in his life.

It changed my life.

There were markers in the ceremony which spoke to me, all of us in the grandstands if anyone other than myself was listening could hear. The commander of the base, a colonel, started the ceremony with a brief welcome, heard only from my position via the PA system, I never saw him. Then he told us to stand and “gentlemen, take off your hats.”

The colonel was going to pray.

That startled me. It shouldn’t have. A warrior knows better than anyone about God, but there was a part of me which wondered what the world would think, a government official telling those in the stands they are going to pray to a god they might not believe in or might even hate.

And I smiled.

Yep, smiled. He tapped Isaiah 6:8 where the Lord asks ‘who shall we send?’ and the answer was ‘here I am, send me.’

That simple phrase, holding my ball cap, stuck.

Look, I know I may not be the fittest, fastest, smartest, but over the years, You have taught me, raised me, cultured me, honed me, just for this season. Yeah, send me. Send me down this path in the woods, covered in snow which I can barely see where I am going and I often lose sight of the trail covered with fresh powder, an ample metaphor for life and a desire to mark it well. I might get lost. I have been lost, but the One who sends me knows exactly where I am.

Huh.

In my youth, maybe you too, I was full of piss and vinegar. Whatever the hell that means. As I get older, my piss and vinegar is waning and I want naps and cake. But there is still a part of me who wants to be sent. And because of the years, the seasons, I know I will be.

Maybe here, maybe there. I am no longer quick to anger, no longer quick to speak. I am not fast afoot but am not broken either. Only slightly bent, with scars aplenty which now indicate maturity in life. Apparently, since I am still alive, still have vitality, still smile and wink. I am like the One who has sent me this far and apparently, I have farther to go.

Gold takes time to refine from its crevasse in the mountain. It’s ground upon itself and heated. The slag is skimmed from the top and finally poured in to forms to cool and process. With the molding which has come only with time, I am ready. I may not look ready, but I am ready. Men and women in this state of preparedness, ahhhhh, when you look in their eyes, you will see—it. You do not want to be on the wrong side of that image. You want to be a part of—it.

Send me on my way. On the path I have trouble seeing but know it’s right and pure and good. It was made by You for me. It will be hard and compasses don’t work here. I will trip, surely from the hidden branches and fall, only to get up and move again.

The path, yeah, it’s mine.

So, send me on my way.

Enjoy the ride.