A Wingfeather Tale: Twists & Turns, Tears & Tempest

Last night when I got into my car after work and after the art show in the library at school, I was deciding what to listen to on the way home.  I really wanted to listen to the Wingfeather Saga, the third book that I’ve been going through, but I struggled with that idea because I didn’t want to get too caught up in the book.  I know that I can so easily do that, get too caught up in the world of Aerwiar, and it concerns me because I fear it will draw me too far away from reality around me.  When I get so caught up in it I am thinking about it all the time, night and day, and playing scenes, statements, questions, and observations over and over and over in my head – something that I would love to be doing with the Bible.  

 

So, since I really wanted to listen to the Wingfeather Saga, I figured I better listen to the Bible on audio – which I have found that the more I get off of listening to the Bible the less I spend in the Word (though I don’t have enough “data/experience” to claim that as a “fair” statement, if you know what I mean).   But I felt like God was giving me the okay to listen to the Wingfeather book, reminding me that He has told me that He will use books, even ones like these, to help grow and guide me.  So I turned on the Wingfeather Saga, book three, and asked God to reveal things to me.   

 

As I neared home, I started driving slower and slower.  I was in the middle of a chapter and I didn’t want to stop in the middle.  As I neared the point where I would turn left to head home, I felt God tell me I can either turn left or keep going straight. 

(I was driving from the lower red dot to the one above it
on the left side.  As I neared that dot, I could either go left
to the next red dot (right next to home) or straight towards the
blue dot.) 

 

I knew several things: 1) I really wanted to finish the chapter, 2) I had to go pee, and 3) I have been working pretty hard to really limit any unnecessary expenses (like driving around to listen to more book or sitting in my car while it’s idling, etc…) since I am fairly tight on finances and I am trying to turn around how I use my money.   So I decided to turn left.   After turning, I drove fairly slowly down the final mile of the road before getting home (this is good fuel-wise since I have a hybrid and I was driving on battery going that slow).  

 

However, when I reached the end of the mile, there was a road that crosses at the stop sign.  I was planning to cross the road, and then there is the house, but I really felt like God was leading me to turn right.

(I was coming from the left, toward the blue dot, and I expect 

to cross the road to the house on the corner (where I live), but I

had felt God leading me to turn right toward the red dot toward

the bottom of this picture.)

 

Knowing that He was behind it I was glad to go, because I really wanted to keep listening to the book.  I knew that if I turned right, about three miles down the road I could make a left, and then two miles later another left and then loop myself all the way back to the other end of our road.  I have done this many times before.   

 

When I got to the end of the three miles, I felt led to make the left hand turn.  And when I got to the end of the next two miles, I also got the go-ahead to turn left again.   As I turned onto this road, facing north again, I slowed as I came to a hill where an old, abandoned, falling apart wooden house sat.  I inched by it, fascinated by it’s beauty.

(This is the route I ended up taking)

As I rounded over the hill, the road made a sharp 90-degree turn left for a half-mile and where it made another 90-degree turn right to straighten itself back out again.  But as I neared the corner, I really felt God telling me to go straight.   Now, technically there is a road that leads straight, though it is an old, dirt road that is not much more than 650 feet long before it flatly dead-end’s into a field.  Having the great enjoyment for driving on old dirt roads, I have been on this one several times, though not a ton – it can be rather bumpy with dried, rutted, tractor tracks.   But now, I had the concern that it might be too muddy, as it was a bit wet out, and rain was a’com’n.

 

(As I came up over the hill (just below the bottom of this 

picture), I expected to follow the paved road that curved left, 

but I felt God directing me to go straight, on to the dirt road.)

 

But I felt like it was God leading me so I went, knowing He would be with me in it and believing He would keep me from getting stuck.   As I drove on the short stub-of-a-road, I found it not wet nearly at all, though it was fairly bumpy, especially near the end, which did not please my wanting-to-be-emptied bladder.  But God helped keep my bladder satisfied where it was.   I parked at the end of the road and listened for an hour or so.   There were a couple some-what emotional times and a few times where I either stopped and shouted/stated, or just declared while it was playing  my agreement and excitement at some great spiritual act, statement, belief, concept, or something of the sort.   The rain came and went off in the distance – I only noticed, I believe, one rain drop land on my car – though I could see the pouring rain ahead of me in a field.   

 

After and hour or so I became a bit concerned as another wave of rain came, and this time it hit the road I was on.  I was worried that the road would become wet and muddy and I could get stuck, though I tried to remind myself that God brought me here, so He can take car of that.   After asking for a bit, I felt the okay to back up and turn around.  After I turned around, I drove to the end of the dirt road, which was more gravel, right at the curve of the paved curve of the road and parked there.   I sat there for the next hour to and hour and a half, and finished up the book.  And boy oh boy, did God do His work in me there.  

(Here are the two places that I parked during this stay.  The top

yellow pin is where I had first parked, and the bottom is the 

second place I had parked once the rain started. In total, 

I was at these two places for a combined probably over two

and a half hours.)

Rain poured the whole time, and it was cool to watch as it splattered and moved on my windshield and as the wind outside blew it around.    While sitting there on that gravel/dirt road in the rain storm that roared outside my car, my car continued to play the Wingfeather Saga, book three (while idling the whole time) and my heart was touched and moved by the Almighty God.  There were some moments in the story that really touched my heart and struck me in this way and that, and some of those moments brought me to tears.   And as the tears fell, I felt silly, but I kept hearing what I believe was God telling me to let it come; to let it all out.   And I did.   Moment after moment, more and more tears came.   The tears turned into a vocal cry, which soon turned into a whine, which felt all the more silly and not something a person in their twenties does, I felt very childish, but I kept hearing the still, small, calm voice telling me to let it out.  I didn’t know how much more would come out, and I wasn’t fully sure the source of this crying, but God was doing something.   The whine then turned into wailing – something I don’t know if I have ever done, especially not as a grown man, and though it felt all the more silly, it kept coming.   And I had peace.   I wailed and wailed and wailed even more, and when I thought I would have no voice left and my throat was more parched than I can every recall and my pants (just below my head) were drenched, I wailed some more.  

 

As my wailing turned back into a whine and a cry and then slowly started to fade away, and the story was nearing the end of the book, I felt God gently telling me not to put a stop to the flood of emotions, as there may be a bit left that will to come out.    And though it wasn’t what I had expected, a tad bit more did come out before the end of the book.  As the book came to a close and the rain raged on outside, I sat in awe, amazed at God’s amazing love and Hand on me, and I still had to pee – which was now starting to grow with a much more urgent feeling, but God had held it for the past three whole hours of listening to this book, and I was grateful.     I drove home without listening to any more audio, but listening to whatever God might be saying and thanking Him and praising Him, and thinking/talking about what had just happened.  I still don’t know the fully source of the crying, what it was in me that needed to come out, but God had prepared this time last night (when I had a free evening almost) to bless me indeed.  

 

Thank you Dad!!!!