I was walking alone, at night in Munich, Germany not really knowing if I was going in the right direction back to my hotel. It was cold, dark, snowing furiously, very confusing, and let me be honest a bit frightening. My bones were aching, my feet hurt, and the fear was welling up inside my skin telling me that this could all go very wrong very quickly.
So I stopped , prayed, and asked for help…and this is what I saw. A tangle of tree branches refelcted on the pavement in front of me. No clear message, just silence…and shadows. And then I was at peace. I remember thinking that if God could keep the trees standing in the dead of winter in this terrible storm, He could point me in the right direction back to my hotel. I looked up, slowly looked around through the icy snowflakes stinging my eyes, and there it was three blocks ahead. I was relieved, not so cold anymore, and very grateful.
The fear and desperation of that moment made me realize that we need the bad to appreciate the good. We need fear to truly experience happiness, panic to enhance joy, and desperation to humbly give thanks for our many blessings. The creep factor of my moment made me truly glad to be safe.
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