Susan LaffertyNight flight. The hum of jet engines wraps around me. Creating space for solitude. Thought.
All else is silent. Lights out. Passengers sleep. A few watch small flickering screens, earphones in place.
Jetspeed on a clear sky night. Across Central Asia. The map says we’re passing over desert. Mountains. Cities and villages.
I watch out the window.
It’s early 2013. Delhi, India. And I’m standing at the bathroom sink. Crying out to the Father. Again.
I can see the marble counter. The dingy mirror. Remember the blur of anguish. Helplessness.
“What are we to do, Lord? How do we help our son?”
The Lord has already made two things clear to me in that season (as detailed in Prodigal, Part 1).
1. Wait. Wait on the Lord.
2. Devote yourself to prayer.
Now I’m standing on the tile floor, in evening shadows. Pleading.
The simple Indonesian rice bowl broke.
It was a “free with purchase of dish detergent” blue and white china bowl. So common and ordinary. A reminder of my childhood.
But it slipped from my hands, hit the marble countertop in our Delhi flat and broke in two. The last straw in a long day, week, month…year.
And I broke.
Ordinary, simple vessel on the floor in pieces.