Be With Me, LORD (06/30/2025)

Last evening, I sat on the porch for a bit, recollecting the miles I’d traveled, the people I’d seen, the conversations I’d had over the past week during my trip home to Sioux City, Iowa. And suddenly, there was this bright light in the distance. It was the sun, on the horizon, shining through the trees. I took a photo of it because it was too bright to look at with my eyes. And when I looked at the photo, there was the most profoundly wonderful cross that I hadn’t seen and wouldn’t have seen without the photo. I’d asked the LORD to be with me, and He was.

As we pulled out of the driveway last Tuesday morning, my daughter, Kendra, and me, I said a prayer for our safe travels but also for a good visit and blessed encounters along the way. We were safe; we made the 425-mile trek to Sioux City, we drove around visiting folks, and then we made the 425-mile trek back home. We had great visits with family. And I encountered some very wonderful individuals along the way. The LORD was with me, for sure. But it was that photo taken while sitting on my porch that really brought that home to me.

I can take others’ presence and gifts for granted. I know because I’ve caught myself doing it and a couple of times others have brought it to my attention. Last evening, sitting on the porch remembering the recent journey, I was taking the LORD’s presence and gifts for granted. True, I had a very important role to play in the journey and in what happened, what unfolded. But I wasn’t the entire cast of characters; mine was not the only effort that mattered. The LORD had been with me all along, every inch of the journey.

I’d asked the LORD to be with me and then I’d sort of run ahead. I asked the LORD to gift me with good encounters, but as I received those gifts, I wasn’t thinking of the gift giver so much. All this became so clear as I stared at the photo of the sun visible through the trees and of the bright cross its light formed. And I thought of Jacob and the story of his dream of the ladder to heaven. When he awoke, his first thought was, “God was in this place though I did not know it.” “Oh, Kate,” I told myself, “the LORD was with me everywhere every moment and I didn’t notice.”

“Lord, help me do better.”

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.