I was in the family tent with my brother, and we heard the neighbors’ kids outside about to cause trouble. But Shep saved the day. He ran out from the tent, barking and growling. We heard the kids running off into the woods that was our back yard. After Shep came back, all was quiet.
“Just doing my job,” Shep could have said.
“Me too,” God could have said.
We had a good night’s sleep.
God was with us there. I’m not sure that I was aware of His presence.
On another occasion, after I had become an adult, married, and had four kids, we were driving up the turnpike from Massachusetts on a cold, snowy night. The roads were awful. I remember, finally at home, sleeping with winding yellow lines along a turnpike. I don’t remember thinking about God that night, but I must have.
There were other times when I didn’t think about God: the long walk around Eagle Lake when I wore my already-worn shoes out, many near misses while driving cars, driving on dark snowy roads, being attacked by a rabid fox and not being bitten because it had snagged my long jeans, riding a subway through tough turf to work in Philadelphia, finishing a long hike in the dark, teaching a class with a “kid” who was over six feet tall, being lost in the woods with my father, being “approached” by a bull moose in the dark, and lots more.
But I did think about God when a car rear-ended me, cutting my forehead, not falling while climbing an old church steeple to help dismantle it, getting back to the car after dark following a long hike up Tumbledown, missing a teen-age girl who leaped in front of my car hollering, “Hit me, hit me!,” a black bear crossing a gravel road in front of our car and my hitting the brakes hard to miss it, a bull moose blocking the Appalachian Trail just at dark.
Those times I did think about God and was thankful to Him.
The comforting thing is that whether I thought about God or not, He was there with me. Wherever I’ve been, God was there with me.
And as I typed this piece, God was here with me too.
Thank God!
Milt Gross, the author of “Down the Road a Piece” can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@roadrunner.com.
