SAVED

 

A golden blanket of leaves cushioned the path, swallowing the sound of his footsteps.  He followed the route mainly by intuition, wandering between the blackened trunks of dead trees and fallen branches.  Each time he found a trail marker it was a small victory that caused him to wonder who or what was guiding him.

 

Down, down the hill he went, down to the lake hidden beyond the forest of stumps and dried marsh grass.  The trail curved along the ridge of the hill and then descended, following what in springtime would be a rushing creek but now just dent in the ground filled with the detritus of late autumn.  He followed the path until it turned and opened up along the shoreline.  There he found a recycled plastic bench with a metal frame that had been anchored with concrete feet against the eroding waves of time.

 

Sitting on the bench he peered out over the lake and let his troubled wander.  A strong northeast wind churned up whitecaps across the lake.  There were no boats out today.  It was too late in the season, too cold and rough to risk being out today.  A flock of geese gathered mid-lake defying the wind.  A hint of blue sky and sunshine to the north teased him with a promise of sunshine with no guarantees of making it to where he sat.  The restless water reflected the shadows of trees, reflecting and refracting them in the waves as they rolled against the shore.

 

The weather mirrored his mood, cold and dark and rough, any joy he could see hiding on the far horizon well beyond his power to reach.  He felt he was carrying the weight of his own world on his own shoulders, on his own head, in his own heart.  He tried to pray but the cold wind sucked the breath and prayer from his lips.  Behind him he heard the threatening sound of branches dislodged by the wind and crashing into the woods.  Rain began to fall, a wild mist that the wind turned into thousands of little needles that stung his face and hands.  A single word echoed in his head: hopeless.

 

Maybe I should just walk into the lake, he thought.  Just wade in and keep on wading until the water reaches my waist, until it covers my shoulders and fills my lungs.  But then what?  Peace?  The end of feeling dragged down and defeated?  Would his troubles be gone or would he just be leaving them for someone else? 

God is love, he had learned in Sunday School, and His grace is deep and wide.  Could grace, could God, reach deep enough to find him in his despair?

 

Movement in the trees to his left drew his eyes.  A small bird hung suspended from a branch, a red-headed woodpecker, checking the branch for movement and looking for a meal.  Its bright red head and black-and-white body stood in contrast to the gloom that surrounded him.  He sat as still as possible, certain any movement would spook the small bird but it was too busy searching for food to even notice him.

 

Not finding any insects the bird flew to some marsh grass where small white berries hung from dying twigs.  The woodpecker pecked them off one by one and, now fed, flew away, singing as it flew.   And in some strange way he felt the weight of his burdens lift with the bird, lift as if someone had reached down and lifted them from him.  The woodpecker’s song of content reminded him that if God cared enough to feed this little bird that late November morning, how much more would God care for him?

 

He left the bench and followed the path again, still leaf-buried but somehow much more obvious, up and over, away from the gloom of the forest.  He followed it back to his campsite with a fire burning in the fire ring and his wife sitting in a lawn chair with her book and a cup of coffee.  And as he settled into the chair next to her, whistling the song the woodpecker had taught him, he thought, it is well.