pursuit

*

by Margie Boswell Miller

A few weeks ago, my husband was out of town and the girls and I went to an annual outdoor river festival.  The sun was out and the day was warm and we wandered through the swollen crowd past rides and booths, stages and tents.  The whole of the city seemed to be there.

Walking slowly, we bought confetti eggs, picked up a free Disney poster, and shared a Lemon Chill.  Sarah waited in line for a balloon animal, and Elizabeth tried her hand at archery.  Small fish tattoos and state maps were handed out by the Parks and Rec Department, and the girls navigated a maze while I sat on a shaded hay bale until they came out together, laughing.  And then we came to the rides.

“You can each choose one,” I said, wincing at the posted prices.  They studied the myriad choices and discussed whether or not one or another had already been tried at different venues.  Elizabeth finally declared:  “The Ferris wheel, Mama.”

I nodded, and scrambled to purchase more coupons.  As the girls stood in line, I waited at the gate and watched them slowly move toward the front, holding hands, my two little girls of 8 and 6.  I doubted the decision to let them ride alone, yet remained rooted in place.  When the big wheel stopped, the operator, a shifty looking guy with a cigarette, asked how many.  I raised my hand and called, “They’re two and they’re together.”  He nodded, and opened the door to an empty car.  And with perfect timing two other sisters, just older, were placed in the car with them and the door closed.

The wheel began to turn, and the metal ride creaked into the sky.  As the girls drew farther and farther away from me, I noticed the shabby, flaking paint on the machine’s welded, outstretched arms, recalled the awful, fatal Ferris wheel accident at the 1955 State Fair, and fervently began to pray.  But after an eternity to me and the blink of an eye to them, the ride slowed to a stop and they exited safely while waxing lyrical about the experience.  We laughed, joined hands, and left the park.

The shuttle that carried us to our car passed an accident on the road, and behind me someone muttered, “Vehicle-pedestrian.”  Though I chose not to draw the scene to girls’ attention, we subsequently found ourselves inching slowly past the ambulance, fire engine, and police car on the way home.  I explained, as gently as I could, what it appeared had happened.

After a short silence, Sarah said, “Let’s pray for that man.”

She brought me figuratively to my knees.  How easy it is, I thought, to pray for my own but yet doubt it sustains others.   I teach my children prayer is always heard, and yet internally murmur it won’t make a difference, which was my immediate, gut-level response on that busy street on a fading, sun-dappled afternoon.

So we prayed right then for the unknown man, whose condition I do not even now know.  We also prayed for his family, for the ambulance EMTs, for the doctors and nurses that would treat him, and for those who stood nearby, watching the scene unfold.

Every evening the girls and I do a small devotional and I give thanks; for the gift of their waking each morning and their simple return to my arms after a ride on a Ferris wheel.  They laugh at my silliness.  But before we conclude, I ask if they want to pray for anyone.

“The man in the street,” says Sarah.

There is a story in the Bible in which Jesus, coming down from the mountain, is approached by a father who asks Him to heal his son.  “Everything is possible for him who believes,” Jesus said and gently accedes to the father’s request.  And though I know neither the circumstances nor fate of the accident of that late Sunday afternoon, I apprehend the response of the father to whom Jesus spoke centuries ago.

“I do believe,” the father said.  “(But) help me overcome my unbelief!”

As I bow my head and reach for the girls’ hands for prayer, I cling to His promise:  Everything is possible.

Though even as yet, I cry: Help me overcome my unbelief.