James had been driving for much longer than he ever had before in a single trip. It was starting to take its toll on him physically. His shoulders and legs were sore, his eyes were getting heavy, and the landscape was less and less stimulating as he moved through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into the Texas Panhandle along Highway 54. Everything was flat, and there were few buildings in the small towns he passed through. James thought that this was God’s way of preparing him for whatever he would need to do once he got to California, of removing any distractions so that he could mentally strengthen himself. James knew that once he arrived in California he would have to remain vigilant against Satan’s efforts to distract him from whatever the subsequent steps of God’s plan would be. Worse yet, he knew that Satan might try to trick him into believing in a false goal. God hadn’t yet revealed his entire plan, and James suspected that Satan might see this as an opportunity to make him fail. After all, James was carrying out God’s will, which would necessarily be counter to Satan’s own plans for humanity. He would encounter distractions of all kinds. There would be confusion. There would be temptation. And once he got to his ultimate goal in Los Angeles, once he was close enough to be a serious threat to Satan’s own plans, there would likely be hopelessness and despair. James knew he would have to overcome all of this in order to succeed for God. He thanked God for giving him this time in the beginning of his journey to focus, to clear his mind and purify his spirit.
James felt his stomach churn and realized he hadn’t eaten since he got in his car and started driving. The pain in his stomach reminded him of what he’d felt at the end of the first day of his fast. He remembered the pain fondly, but he was glad he wouldn’t have to continue feeling it for two more days. He had brought no food with him on his trip, because he knew that God would provide for him. James began thinking about finding a grocery store, but then he saw what he took to be a sign from God. It was a Dairy Queen sign just off the highway in Dalhart, Texas.
No other fast-food restaurant would have had the same personal meaning to James as the Dairy Queen, and he knew that God knew this. When James was young, his first foster family had been devoutly Christian. His foster father was strict and physically abusive, though he always justified the abuse with the Bible. James couldn’t understand this rationale as a child, but as an adult he reflected on the times his first foster father would whip him and his foster brothers and sisters with a car antenna, and understood that pain can sometimes be a better teacher, a better expression of love, than anything else. But as a child he had found this impossible to understand.
While he was with that foster family, Dairy Queen was his favorite place. James had a Sunday School teacher who was kind to him, and she would take all the children from her Sunday School class to Dairy Queen every Sunday. She’d buy them ice cream and encourage them to get to know one another, and it seemed that she chose to express her love and obedience to God through compassion and understanding. It was a brief reprieve from his foster father, and the caring his Sunday School teacher showed him was unique in his life at the time. As a result, Dairy Queen was the place he most closely associated with happiness as a child. It was the place where he felt closest to God.
His foster father’s temper was not confined to his wards, however, and eventually the man beat his wife so badly that he was sentenced to some time in jail and their foster children were all removed and dispersed to other foster homes. He wasn’t very close with any of his foster siblings, but he sometimes wondered where they ended up and if they felt the same way about Dairy Queen as he did.
As he walked through the front doors, the familiar smell of the soft-serve machine and the grease from the fryers transported him right back to those Sundays. He ordered the same thing he always ordered as a child: a double cheeseburger, fries, and a Heath Blizzard. Every bite was justification that what he was doing was what God wanted, and it filled him with excitement at what God might have in store for him on the rest of his journey.
He looked around and noticed that he was the only person in the place besides the staff, which included a young cook who was very likely a local high school student and the older lady who had taken his order. It was late, and glancing at the store’s hours posted on the door, James saw that they were about to close. He looked at the older lady who was wiping down a table near him and apologized for keeping them in the store later than they had to be.
The older woman said, “Nonsense, young man. You eat your dinner and stay here as long as you like. We have to clean up anyway, and I don’t mind having some extra company.”
God was innately good, and individual happiness was his greatest gift to any person. Science and the study of space and planets were fine, but those things weren’t for most people. Most people couldn’t have a true understanding of science, so those endeavors were best left to those who could grasp them. Being kind to one another and making life pleasant were what most people should focus on. Sex and love were for the young. After a certain age, after having enough experiences, life eventually became about finding something to pass your time while you remembered the things that made you truly happy. Having children was essential, because it was easier to remember your own youth if you surround yourself with young people. These were things that the old woman understood to be true.
James thanked her and wondered if she was an angel. He knew it was certainly possible that God would send angels to help him along in his journey. If she wasn’t an angel, he hoped he would encounter one or two on his journey, and he looked forward to recognizing them.
After finishing his meal, he said goodbye to the older woman and told her that he appreciated everything she had done for him, to which she responded, “I just gave you dinner, son. You needed it and I gave it to you. Anyone else would have done the same.” James took this overtly humble response to be further evidence of her possible divine origin. As he walked out into the parking lot and started wondering where he would sleep, he gave a brief thought to going back inside and asking the angel if she knew of anyplace to stay for the night, but he thought better of it. He didn’t want to insult God’s generosity by asking for more. God would provide him what he needed as he needed it. So he got in his car and got back on the freeway, looking for a divine sign. No more than a minute farther down the road, he saw a sign for the Corral RV park and pulled off at the next exit.
Once he got to the RV park, certain that this was where God intended him to spend his first night on the road, James found that they were closed. There was a small building in front of the park labeled “Office,” but it was dark and the door was locked. James was silently asking God if he had misinterpreted anything, if he was meant to have gone somewhere else, when a man emerged from a nearby RV and lit a cigarette. James asked him if he knew where the supervisor was, or if there was some way to contact him.
The man said, “I think they’re closed for the night. I doubt you can make a reservation or anything for tonight, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
If there was a God, then humanity was better off without him. Any creature that had absolute power over everything on planet Earth clearly only wanted to cause us all pain and misery in some of the most sadistic ways possible. The universe was vast and mysterious and beautiful, but no human being would ever get to experience it. The knowledge of such things was only the taunting insult of a paradise we could never experience. Instead most people would spend their lives performing a job they didn’t care about and wondering if anything in their life would ever have real meaning for them. Ultimately they would conclude that there was no meaning. Sex was the only thing worth living for, but the trappings of a regular relationship were too high a price to pay for it. Taking small vacations with a prostitute in an RV was the only thing that could keep a man sane. Children were not only disgusting and inconsiderate, but they were also evidence of the futility of life, of the disposable nature of everything, the inherent obsolescence in each and every person’s excuse for a life. These were things that the smoking man understood to be true.
James told the man that he was trying to find a place to stay for the night. He explained that he’d been on the road for a long time, and he had no problem sleeping in his car, but he wanted to find a safe place, not just the side of the highway. The smoking man said, “Well, you can see my RV here. It’s an Airstream Incognito, on the smaller side, but I accidentally booked a full-size spot here for tonight. Your car could probably fit right behind me if you wanted to pull in for the night.”
The stranger’s generosity surprised James, but it solidified his understanding of just how invested God was in him and his journey. Clearly God had sent two angels from heaven to help him on his first night of the journey. James kindly accepted the offer and pulled his car behind the RV as the stranger finished his cigarette.
James asked the stranger how long he’d been on the road and what his final destination was. He hoped the answer would reveal some hint from God about what the next day of his own journey would hold. The stranger said, “Today’s the first day of a little road trip I’ve been planning for a month or so. I try to get out in the RV at least three or four times a year. Clear my head. And I don’t really have a final destination. Back home I guess. I just drive around for a few days, see the sights, meet some people like yourself along the way, and then head back home.”
James understood the stranger’s home to be heaven. He didn’t want to pry too much further, as he felt that God would have instructed the angel to be secretive where details were concerned. He knew that God wouldn’t want to give him every piece of information he needed, but rather to allow James to learn some things for himself. He silently thanked God for sending him two angels in a single night, and then he thanked the stranger again.
The stranger said, “You’re more than welcome. It’s really no trouble. We might be out of here tomorrow pretty early, so if I don’t see you in the morning, good luck on your own trip, wherever it takes you.”
The stranger threw his cigarette butt on the ground, stomped it out, and headed back into his RV. James couldn’t help smiling about the small bit of information that the angel had let slip. He referred to himself as “we.” For James there was only one way to interpret that. Not only was this stranger an angel, but God was present as well. God wasn’t just up in heaven looking down on James. God was also there with him.
James got into his car, reclined the seat, and breathed deeply. He rolled down his window and let the night air into his car. He could feel God in the way the air felt heavier than normal for that time of year. He could smell God in the faint lingering smoke from the angel’s cigarette. He could hear God in the cars passing by on the highway. He could sense that all this was part of God’s plan, in a way that he never could before.
He opened his sunroof and looked up at the stars. The night sky had always fascinated James. It seemed so vast and so endless. He didn’t understand how anyone could look up at the heavens and not know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a great and awesome God had made it all. He didn’t dwell on how every star was just a ball of hydrogen floating in space like our sun. He didn’t wonder what other planets might be locked in their own orbits around those stars. He never thought about what forces might be at work holding it all together. He only took in the immensity of it, and imagined the greatness of the God who created it all.
He closed his sunroof, got as comfortable as he could in his driver’s seat, and fell asleep wondering what other angels he would meet on his trip to California.