Over this Thanksgiving holiday, I had a flashback to a turkey incident that my husband and little girl and I experienced back in 2007. That was the year that I discovered something unusual was going on with my immune system; it was the year that I was told I undoubtedly had multiple sclerosis or lupus since I had a random case of optic neuritis and had thus experienced some temporary vision loss in my right eye.
I had just started to feel comfortable behind the wheel again, so my husband asked me to follow him to the auto shop where his car needed to be dropped off. While I don’t remember the exact day, I do remember that it was very close to Thanksgiving day. I remember too that my little girl, who would have been two years old at the time, was riding with me. And as we drove along on one of the back roads near our home, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my right eye. I wasn’t sure what it was at first since it was moving rather quickly, and I was trying to pay attention to the curvy road. I then heard my little girl say something like, “Look, Mommy, it’s a bird!” And it was–a turkey in fact.
Yes, during the Thanksgiving season that year, we found ourselves side by side with a turkey that appeared to running for its life. As I looked out of the passenger window, I could see it as it kept pace with my mini-van, and it felt a little bit like we were in a “wild game” (silly pun intended) drag race. This was all great fun to my little girl. She talked about it for days and remembers it still now seven years later. For my husband and me, though, it became a big joke that wasn’t all that funny to me at the time.
When I first saw the turkey, I called my husband from my cell phone to tell him about the big bird. “Is it just my imagination or is there a wild turkey running alongside my van?” My husband’s quick response was, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t see a thing.” Though he giggled shortly after that, I had just enough time to start worrying a little bit. I did, after all, just have problems with vision in my right eye, problems that the folks in the emergency room said could have been caused by a stroke or a brain tumor; and I was quite traumatized by all of this, the first major medical crisis of my adult life.
When we finally arrived at the car place that day, having lost the turkey somewhere along the way, I jumped out of my van immediately and said to my husband, “I was really starting to think I was done (another silly pun intended). As I fought back tears, my little girl piped up and said, “Daddy, I saw it too!” My husband then began to laugh, affirming the fact that he had been kidding, but I laughed not. And I am struck now by how very quickly I forgot that I had actually had a reliable witness in my backseat marveling at that turkey with me.
Reflecting back on this incident now makes me think much about how very quickly we second guess ourselves, especially when we think that the people around us don’t see something that we see. I do this all the time with God. He allows me to see or discern something and I immediately second guess it when nobody else appears to share my “vision.” We must continue to learn to trust God. He is doing something so very unique in each one of our lives, and we cannot allow ourselves to be derailed from the Truth simply because others don’t see what we do and/or when and how we do. We have to remember that we do indeed walk through this life down here with reliable witnesses–with the Son of God and the very Spirit of God. Thus, we can trust what God shows us, even when others don’t see it.
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