1020 B.C.
BETHLEHEM
Wren opened her eyes.
Panic set in as she saw an utterly different landscape than her street. Wherever she was, it certainly wasn’t Kansas. She stood and turned in a complete circle, hoping to see the woman who had said something about opening someone’s eyes.
What happened? Where am I?
She looked around and couldn’t see anything that resembled her home. She was in the middle of a beautiful green pasture!
No. No. No.
What just happened?
“Where am I?” Wren asked the new world around her.
She took in more of the landscape. She was standing on one side of a large valley. Where the pasture stopped, a massive field of grain grew. It looked like all the wheat she saw back home. Her grandfather grew wheat on his farm and loved to tell her random facts about it. Like Kansas produces the most wheat in the United States, and all the wheat grown there in one year would fill train cars that stretched from western Kansas all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
She was still holding her mother’s neon-green index card.
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Reading the verse again gave her a boost of confidence. She had to figure out what was going on. When she looked to the right—where her neighborhood should be—Wren saw a herd of sheep grazing. There were at least thirty of the fluffy white animals roaming around. Petting the creatures would surely help ease the stress of her day.
She blinked a few more times and shook her head. Her mind had to be playing tricks on her from the drama of the day. But the sheep were still grazing, and there was no concrete, no houses, and no Kansas around for miles.
I’ll pet the sheep and calm down. That’s the plan. Pet the cute sheep and calm down!
Wren slowly walked up to the closest sheep and stuck her hand out. She always did that with her friend’s dog so it could sniff her first. Did sheep follow the same rules?
The sheep licked her hand instead of sniffing it. Its tongue felt like sandpaper. It tickled and made her laugh. She kneeled down and rubbed the serene animal behind the ears. The other sheep were curious and started to come closer to her.
Wherever she was, it was more relaxing than the real world of Mulvane, Kansas. Maybe this was heaven. Maybe her very young heart had finally had enough of all the stress and simply stopped beating. But if this was heaven, where were all the people?
Wren welcomed the sheep as they surrounded her. It felt good to be here. No sadness. Just beautiful sunlight. Clear blue sky. Endless green prairie that stretched to the horizon.
The adorable sheep.
She needed to find her dad and bring him here too.
She absorbed the beauty of the moment.
But just like back home, all beautiful things had to end.
When she looked up from petting the sheep, she couldn’t believe what she saw. A brown bear stood on the crest of a nearby hill. The huge creature had to weigh more than three grown men! The bear looked at her and swung its big fuzzy head back and forth.
The bear began walking down the hillside in her direction. Its massive legs worked like a machine to push the lumbering giant forward.
After a few paces, the bear had built up momentum and began running. Wren figured she looked appetizing to the bear and didn’t want to imagine what would happen when it finally caught up to her. She immediately thought of her Uncle Nick.
He had a cat named Bandit, and when Wren was little she loved playing with him. She would get rough with the cat, and her uncle would say, “Careful. If you keep playing with Bandit like that, there’ll be nothing left of you except your hair, teeth, and eyeballs.”
If bears could talk, the one coming after her would surely be quoting Uncle Nick.
She looked around the pasture. There was a huge boulder sitting about a football field’s length away.
She had no choice. Wren had to make a run for it. She was a sitting duck where she was, and today she didn’t feel like getting eaten by a bear.
She jumped to her feet and ran as fast as she could to the boulder. She prayed she didn’t trip over anything, because if she did, that would be the end of it.
As she ran, she could hear the bear grunting. The sound got louder as the humongous animal got closer. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the bear was so close. She guessed only twenty yards behind!
Wren thanked the Lord she had done gymnastics for the last five years. She decided that she was going to do a killer vault up onto the rock and escape her attacker.
But the bear had different plans. It closed the gap on its human prey. Only fifteen yards behind…like a runaway train barreling down the tracks.
Lord, please help me get to the rock!
Wren pushed harder. She concentrated on pumping her legs up and down, as fast as she could get them to move.
The bear closed the distance between them. Only ten yards behind…
Lord, please get me to the rock!
So close now. But then a sharp, stabbing pain shot up her right leg, from her ankle all the way up to her hip. It interrupted her stride. Her right leg buckled, causing her to slow down.
The animal’s grunting grew louder. It sounded like a boat motor, gurgling and churning in the water.
Only five yards behind.
This was it.
Wren took a deep breath and used every ounce of strength she could muster—and jumped.
She made it without falling and executed her best vault yet, landing almost near the top of the massive stone. The bear’s claws raked against the boulder, and a disappointed roar came from its hungry mouth. It stood on its hind legs, and with its left paw on the boulder, swatted at her with its right.
The bear kept clawing while she prayed he would forget he was hungry or get distracted by something else.
Minutes passed, and the bear eventually lost interest. He dropped to all four paws and turned back to the pasture. She realized that her prayer was being answered. The bear had his sights set on a new meal: the sheep.
There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t run after the bear and make it go away.
She watched in utter helplessness as the bear trotted up to one of the peaceful creatures. Wren couldn’t look. She shut her eyes and covered her ears.
After a minute, she opened her eyes and put her hands down. That’s when she saw a young man standing between her and the flock. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen but had biceps that would make her gymnastics coach proud.
His outfit was strange. He wore something that looked like a leather vest and baggy tan pants that stopped way above his ankles. Did the boy not know about the bear behind him?
He held a big wooden stick in his right hand. The top of the stick was shaped in the form of a big hook.
He looked at her and waved. She was too frightened to wave back. Instead, she pointed past him and hoped he would turn around in time to see the mammoth predator.
Instead he waved at her again then turned around to see what she was pointing at.
And then he did what Wren would have never guessed he would do. The young man took off running into the forest after the bear!
She waited at the rock and watched the remaining sheep mill around in a tight huddle.
A few minutes later, she watched the young man come back out of the forest holding the sheep! He had blood on his arms and legs, but he seemed to be walking just fine. He came back and put the rescued sheep down with its friends.
Who could fight a bear and win?