6:39 A.M.

6:39 a.m. No, that's not the current time, but it is when the phone next to my bed woke me up this morning. It was one of those times when the sleep is deep and upon wakening, you really don't know where you are or what time it is. But the clock said 6:39 -- WAY too early for anybody to be calling just to say good morning. So instinct told me something was wrong. "Hello." "Ms. Nancy?" "Yes." "It's Cade. I missed the bus." "Again? Okay, what time do you have to be there?" "I don't know." "I think you have to be there by 7:30. Watch for me." And that's the way my day started. I made some coffee (extra bold!), brushed my teeth, slipped on some clothes, and told Sandy that God might have saved the boy's hide because my reading before I went to bed last night was on allowing God to call us to any role of servanthood He might desire. So I put on my sunglasses just in case I ran into anybody I knew, and headed out. (Honestly, it wasn't a hardship. I'm delighted my number is on his refrigerator.)

Thank goodness I was looking when I drove up to the house, or I might have run over the child. He was waiting crunched down in the driveway, hidden from sight by the blooming day lilies. (I don't mean that in a cursing sort of way -- they really are blooming!) The little fellow didn't have a book in his hand. Wednesday when I picked him up -- yes, he missed the bus Wednesday, too, but he had overslept -- or gone back to sleep (no casting of stones here), so it was much later in the morning. This morning he had literally just missed the bus by seconds -- actually saw it pulling away. I asked him if he didn't try to chase it for awhile, but he said that the driver will lose her job if she stops at a stop that isn't a stop. Anyway, Wed. he was so loaded down with books he could hardly manage to even open the car door. For some reason, they aren't allowed to carry backpacks the last week of school. But today -- zilch, nothing. I said, "Cade, don't you have finals today?" "Yes, ma'am." "So where are your books?" "I don't need them." "But don't you need to take them to school and turn them in?" "They're already at school." "So what tests do you have today?" "Social studies, language arts" and a 3rd one he named that I can't remember. "So, you didn't bring your books home to study?" "No, ma'am. I had already been studying, so I was ready." (Sort of reminds me of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids.) There was only one thing Cade was lacking. A way to get where he was going and culminate his first year in middle school. The little fellow had done all the right things and was ready -- even gotten up on time today, but the distance between home and his destination was still too far to get there on his own. And even if he could have walked, he still needed someone to vouch for him at the front desk.

That's the way it is with you and me. We can do all the right things, whatever those "things" might be -- go to church every times the door open, feed the hungry, speak kindness to the overworked cashier, even read our Bibles every day, but the truth is we're still going to need someone to vouch for us at the front desk. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." Try as we want, the divide is too great, the chasm too deep. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All. As much as we try to make ourselves ready -- and, yes, we are told to pursue holiness and be holy, the bottom line is that we still need Jesus. He's the only way -- and the only One to vouch for us at the door.

By the way, on the way to school Wed., I asked Cade if his dad knew he had missed the bus, and he said yes. So I told him from now on just to call me and we'd cut out the middle man. Thought it might make life a little easier for the lad -- unless, of course, his dad reads this post. But after all, dad, it was only the 3rd time all year that it had happened. Okay, make that 4.