The Christmas Journey
By Peggy Harris
Christmas 1956 sticks in my memory. We were getting ready to leave Missouri where Mel had served his tour of military duty at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri in the Army Corps of Engineers. I remember walking to work for the last time to the doctor’s office where I worked. The trees, power lines and shrubs were all covered with ice from an ice storm. The city of Rolla looked like a crystal city. All our possessions were packed and the station wagon loaded for an early get away. Three foot lockers were tied to the top of the car.
As we left Missouri our Siamese cat, Mei Ling, burrowed into the packed belongings to hide away. We drove day and night to reach Colorado where we spent the weekend with friends. Somewhere along the empty dark stretches of road in the wee hours past midnight and desperately cold weather we came across a stranded car in Utah. After going past and thinking they might need some help on this very cold night, we backed up and Mel went to see what their problem was.
It was a family with a tiny baby whose car stopped and they couldn’t get it started. They gratefully accepted our help and asked if we could just push them over the next hill to a service station where they knew they could get help. We pushed them over several hills before reaching the dark closed station. They thanked us and said they knew the people there and could wake them up.
We drove on to our destination and reached Mel’s folks ranch in Chelan, Washington on Christmas Eve. We hadn’t told them we were coming that soon and wanted to surprise them. Well, surprise them we did and what a joyous Christmas we had with them. It was so good to be home again. It was so good to have arrived safely. We were thankful to be with loved ones again.
We have been on a journey through our lifetime of going home to heaven. Many things have happened to us along the way. There are some sad events we live through, discouragements, sidetracks, as well as joys and excitement about getting home at last. We don’t know just how long this journey will take.
How is your journey, friend? May you be encouraged to hang on and keep putting one foot in front of the other despite the trials you encounter. Together, with encouragement from unseen hosts we will make it!
