Bridge Called Hope Read Online Free PDF Page B

combination
that
is!
I thought, as I glanced over toward the hitching post …
    Kim! Focus!
    Within my fatigue-hammered heart, I was dumbfounded and a little saddened at how little of what this woman was saying was actually entering my head. I felt like a brainless test dummy for some weird hypnosis experiment.
Just stare at the lips … keep your eyes on the lips
 …
    Suddenly, Lucas ran up behind the woman I was straining to focus on. He was not even three feet behind her when he stepped up onto a railroad tie that encircled a flower bed and yanked down his pants! Completely oblivious to us, with the innocence and abandonment of a three-year-old, he began to “water the flowers”! This child was maybe seven feet away from me! I could feel my eyes ping-pong back and forth between the crying woman and the peeing boy!
    Not wishing to minimize the importance of the account being shared, I struggled even more to maintain my focus. Now my internal free-for-all began to pressurize as I fought hard not to smile or burst out laughing in the face of a distraught woman! I could sense that my face was turning bright red. With great difficulty, I was managing the task … until the little imp began
sky writing!
    Thankfully, all good things must come to an end. I was exactly one moment away from discovering if a human being can actually blow her own head off with explosive laughter … when my little “high flyer” finished his mission, returned everything to its proper place, and pulled his pants back up.
    My relief spread like a hound on a porch. I could feel the muscles in my jaw begin to relax and the natural shape of my mouth returning. Obviously, seeing my ridiculous facial contortions, the sweet-but-distressed woman in front of me musthave thought I was either the biggest drama queen on earth or the most over-emotional sap she had ever seen!
    All was going well again—until my little blond friend, who was still standing within arm’s reach of my guests, realized that his hand was “wet.” I stealthily observed him study his wet hand. He just didn’t seem to know what to do. His little brain churned with the realization that to wipe pee on your own clothes would be yucky.
    So, according to his three-year-old sense of logic, he did the next best thing. He wiped dry his pee-soaked hand … on his head. The
top
of his head … on the exact spot that I had just kissed!

O nce again, fall was descending on the high desert. Each frosty night gave way to a new dawn full of more color than the last. The trees on the ranch seemed to join in an unwritten melody, all singing together, through their dramatic transformation, of the sheer glory of life. Each year I can’t help but imagine that this is how nature gives one last glorious “hoorah!” before the deep rest of winter’s white falls.
    After walking up the hill toward our home, I kicked the edge of the deck to clean off my boots before going inside. Like taking a deep breath, I took one last, long look at the view. I was deeply struck by how the simplicity of man-made things was absolutely no match for the magnificent autumn wonder that clothed the ranch below. Anyone who knows me understands how much more my heart desires to stay in God’s masterpiece of creation … than to go into my office. But, we do what we must to keep going forward.
    Following my evening routine of taking off my hat and putting my sunglasses inside, it was time to finally sit. While leaning back in my office chair, I put my boots on the edge of my desk and thumbed through my daily messages. Immediately, a note confirming that Virginia had called earlier caught myattention. Virginia and her twin sister, Vicki, are close friends who work together on an enormous horse ranch just ten miles west of ours. Knowing my friend, she usually calls when she has a fun, horse-related message. I returned her call first.
    She began by explaining that she and her sister had just returned home from a