Take a Nap!

My cousin sent me this true story about a bear rescued from a bridge.

The bear was walking across the Rainbow Bridge on old Highway 40 in California. The bridge spans a dry gulch far below. Two cars crossing the bridge scared the bear and it clambered over the side only to find itself on a ledge with no way back up and no way down. Although authorities were called, they could do nothing and they left the bear to its fate. The next day, they came back to see what had happened and found the bear sound asleep on the ledge. With renewed resolve, they rigged a net under the bear, tranquilized it, and lowered it to the ground where it woke up and calmly walked away.

Now that was an enlightened bear. It found itself in an impossible situation with no immediate solution. Instead of freaking out or jumping to certain death, it settled down for a rest.

Yesterday, I put my daughter on a plane by herself. The plan was for her to meet up with another family in San Francisco and fly together to China. After her flight left, the other family called as they were boarding their plane to say their flight was delayed and they would probably not arrive in San Francisco in time to make the flight to China.

The old me would have been frantic. I would have been calling airlines, hyperventilating, tracking the flights online, sick to my stomach with dread, and getting a migraine. But I remembered that bear. There was nothing I could do at the moment, so I lit a candle and sat down to meditate and pray. (Okay, I was too keyed up to take a nap.) I reminded myself that everything was in God’s hands, and it would work out however it was supposed to work out.

The other family did miss the flight, so Lily got on the plane and headed off to China on her own. She had to go through customs by herself and then wait for them at the airport in Beijing. There was no way for me to communicate with any of them so I had to wait. And wait. I just heard that they were finally all together.

Whew. That was hard. That was really hard not to get all worked up over something I could not control. I was not as relaxed as the bear, who was certainly in a worse predicament, but I did all right.

As my cousin’s version of the story ends, “The moral of the story is that when confronted with a bad situation, sometimes the best solution is to take a nap and let the Lord take care of the rest.”

Now that I know she is safe, I think I will take that nap after all.

(I do not have the technological know how to put pictures on this blog, but if you want to see that bear, google “bear rescued from bridge.”)