NaturallyResilient

About

College was a fruitful time in my spiritual life. Some young people wander away from God during that time but I was drawn closer. Nature, whether sitting outside watching the birds, looking at the sky sometimes a solid blue other times with majestic clouds or even just riding my bike to class under the ancient oak trees, always brought me closer to God.  My bike was my first major purchase with my own money as a teenager in high school. It was my main mode of transportation at college where parking spaces for cars were scarce and classes widely spaced. During my freshman year, I left my bike chained to a bike rack with many other bikes over a long weekend break. When I got back to campus on Monday I could not find my bike. I walked around the bike racks where over a hundred had been parked Thursday afternoon.  Most of the other bikes were still there but not my blue thoroughbred (I liked to think of my bikes as horses, my first bicycle was a Morgan then I had a show horse before my latest acquisition). I walked around the dorms thinking some one had “borrowed” it and I would soon find it.  I finally gave in and went to the campus police station and reported it missing.

They did not give me any reason to hold out hope of finding my thor­oughbred. I thought why this might have happened. Was I becoming too dependent on material things?  I talked to God about it. I told Him “I maybe relying on material things when I need to focus on you. This has jarred me awake on that. But I still need a bicycle to get to my classes on time.  I would prefer to have my old bike because I’m use to it and I am sentimental about it, but if you want me to get a different one ok I will. If my old bike is not found by Friday I will go shopping for another one on Saturday”

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday passed with out a word about my bike. By Friday afternoon I had resigned myself to the idea of getting a new bike.  I started looking at my money situation trying to figure out how to pay for one on a poor college student’s income.  Friday evening at about 8 pm a roommate pokes her head in my room to tell me I had a call.  On the phone was the campus police who said, “I believe we have your bike”.

The next morning I headed to the police station and they showed me a bike I did not recognize at first because the black handlebars had been retaped with white tape. But then I saw the blue fingernail polish I had used to cover the scratches spotting the frame and I knew my thoroughbred had come home.