I'm So Glad I Was Wrong

I thought it was alone. Each morning while I sat on the couch in our room at a mountain resort my husband and I rented, I gazed through the window at a ski chair. It hung alone facing downslope, suspended between seasons. No snow would arrive for a couple of months, and the summer mountain bikers and view seekers had all gone home.

Did the ski lift chair feel useless, unenjoyed, angry about how the life it previously led had ceased? This picture stirred something familiar inside of me, so I brought it to prayer, expressing to God my frustration with sometimes sensing I have no purpose, the impatience of waiting to be used by him, the loneliness of feeling unseen.

Do you see me waiting here?
Do you hear my prayer to find my purpose, to gain my footing when life as I knew it stopped?
Do you care?

Our last morning in the mountains, I brought my coffee over to the L-shaped couch, pulled a blanket over me to sink into some cozy quiet. This time, however, I sat in a different spot from where I'd been the previous mornings. From this small shift in position, my view out the window changed, and I gained a different perspective.

My heart leapt upon seeing what I saw. Across from the ski chair hung another chair suspended from the cable facing up the ski hill. They seemed to be looking at each other.

Relief washed over me as I realized the ski chair was not alone! Never, ever was it alone.

And neither am I.


Diane Carver Mann, 2020