On Friday morning I was awakened by a buzzing cell phone on the bedside table of the hotel that I was sleeping in. I was attending a conference in Junction City and had spent the previous evening enjoying the event’s final evening entertainment. All that was left was a Federal update and the drive home.
And so, when I heard the phone buzz, I simply thought it was my alarm waking me to the coming day. But it was so much better.
Sitting up, I patted the table beside me searching for the thin, rectangular object that had awakened me. Finding it, I picked it up and peered at the small square window on the front of the phone. I glanced at the time – it was 10 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. I looked closer, there was a name showing on display. Immediately, it dawned on me – this was a phone call!
Instantly I was wide awake. There was only one phone call that I was expecting – and there was her name on my phone! I flipped it open and had one of the best mornings of recent experience.
A baby girl. I listened to my co-worker as she related the particulars – sex, length, weight, time, details about the delivery. I asked questions, and listened more with a huge grin on my face. For behind the words was an effusion of joy that could not help but escape into the electronic phone in my ear.
I hung up the phone and cried. I cried and I thanked God. I cried because this was my co-worker’s second child. The first was born more than two years ago and is now buried in a small graveyard near my home. He had lived for a brief, and very brave three months.
As I wrote the announcement for the rest of the campus, tears were still streaming down my face. God is truly good, I wrote. God is truly, truly good.
“Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love; hearts unfold like flowers before thee, opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!” Henry Van Dyke
