The People Along the Way

A quiet reading.

It was no ordinary trip to a baseball game. What made it so was not just the game itself, but the reason for going—a family reunion at the ballpark.

As often happens, circumstances had their say. The drive was four and a half hours, and halfway there, a tire went flat. There had been no warning from the sensor, only the unmistakable flop, flop of a tire without air. Almost immediately, someone stopped to help—an unexpected angel named Cody.

The trip itself was meant to be a surprise for my wife’s birthday. Up to that point, everything had gone smoothly. But the flat tire cost us three hours waiting for a repair. Plans had to shift. The rendezvous site changed. Still, the surprise held. It was worth it.

We had expected bad weather. This part of the country at this time of year makes that almost inevitable. As we neared our destination, we kept an eye on tornado warnings, driving through steady rain. Then, just as suddenly, the sky cleared and the warnings were lifted.

Only after we arrived did we hear the rest of the story. Had we not been delayed by the flat tire, we might have crossed paths with the tornado that touched down in Mineral Wells, Texas.

But what stays with me most is not the delay or even the storm. It is the people along the way.

We would not have met Cody, who told us he had found God a year ago and now finds joy in stopping to help others. And I would not have had a conversation with a Desert Storm veteran, now running in a local judgeship runoff. I gave him a copy of my book, Shared Tomatoes. I still wonder what he made of it.

What might have been an inconvenience became something else.

I find myself wondering how often this happens without my noticing.

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