Last week, the horizon greeted me like a welcome rescue as I turned to the skinny road from the wider, more busy highway.

Both frustrated by my anxiety over the big white ghost of a Tahoe with headlights like a cat following me closely all the way and determined to breathe and be okay, thumbs on the places 4 and 8.

So, the sun rising wide over my granddaughter’s home?

Redemption. Relief.

A whisper, a sigh.

I could go on.

Thoughts rose up from an article or post I’d skimmed over, the question posed,

What is your Gethsemane?

Meaning, I supposed,

What did you ask God not to allow that He did anyway?

At first, I thought, how can we dare to compare our falling apart and asking to be spared with the request of Jesus?

Then, the mental list developed.

And then, another in contrast.

“Things that happened despite the things that happened”.

I turned the ancient wisp of pages to Mark 14 in the Bible with penciled “sermons to self”. Angela, an educator from Bibb County, Ga. added her wisdom and thoughts back in 1937, became mine because of an estate sale.

Curiously, a page is torn down the middle.

I think now of the veil torn in two.

The darkness midday.

The verses that describe Jesus being anointed with a costly ointment by a woman who was chastised is no longer here. Neither, the Lord’s Supper.

The garden scene is preserved, the plea of Jesus face down in broken supplication remains.

And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it be possible, the hour might pass from him. Mark 14:34 , KJV, Oxford

And we know what happened next, the agony, the death and the resurrection.

We know what happened because of and despite the fear in the garden.

What are your “Gethsemane moments”?

What is “scaring you to death”?

Look up, redemption will find you

And, in time pale in comparison to the unwanted anguish.

I believe. I do.