The Bridge

Mel asked me if there are “lots of scribbles” in my journal. I had to laugh because there are so many words and lines crossed out—and, lately, even whole pages marked through with a great big X. Sometimes, when I begin writing, I’m not even sure where I’m headed, not sure the right thing to say. So at times, I just start anyway.

Then, when it comes to living, I guess, I often do the same. No one knows—really—where she’s headed when she throws a leg over the edge of the bed in the morning. There’s usually a plan, but plans just don’t always play out the way we think. Sometimes, that’s good, and sometimes it isn’t.

The snow is blowing this afternoon, not in soft big flakes to fill up a thirsty land with a drink, but in cold swirlly gales pushing dry white stuff all through the air.This kind of weather at this time of year always makes me wonder what it was like that night when Jesus was born—when the Creator became the created.

Was it cold, with wind whipping through the tunnels created by flat roofed abodes butted up against the path of a street? This whole incarnation thing happened so long ago. It happened in a culture and century so incredibly removed from ours. Sometimes it’s hard to bridge it.

Yet, when the sparkle of conception happened in the womb of a virgin—there were no scribbles, no cross outs—not even one wrong word. Then, wonderously, God created His own bridge—one to span heaven’s perfection to human blight—from a lowly stable to the warm house I sit in, right here on another wintery day.