March 5, 2023
by Collette Nies Von Hanna
Psalm 121
About eight years ago, I was traveling late in the last hour of my six-hour drive to Spring, Texas. Driving the vast stretches of west Texas highways was a common practice for work and its an area of the country where one can drive for hundreds of miles and see no one. It was around eleven o’clock and I stopped at the last rest area, let my pit bull out for a few minutes, put her back in the car, and walked toward the restroom. There was only one other vehicle there, a family of four that was loading up and by the time I walked by they began to drive off. The women’s restroom entrance was not in the middle at the front of the building, like they normally are, but around the side towards the back corner, which is an odd placement, because it is not very well lit and out of sight from most of the parking lot. When I reached the doorway there was a very pale man, maybe 25 years old, over 6’ tall, standing in the shadow, wearing dark clothing, and he had a hoodie covering most of his face.
Turning quickly into the large bathroom, every hair on my body was on alert. What was he doing there? The men’s room was on the opposite side of the building. There were no other cars in the parking lot and we were an hour each direction from any kind of gas station or town. It is not often I feel physically threatened, but I knew something was about to happen. I started praying…praying in my mind, with my words, in tongues in my spirit, all of it, desperately pleading for protection.
Gathering my wits, I walked out and he was still there, in the same place, hovering next to the door in the dark. I didn’t make eye contact, walked really fast past him to my car, all the while still praying. I specifically remember envisioning two giant angels to my right and to my left.
The family that was leaving, that should have been long gone, had sat on the exit ramp, waiting and watching. When I got to my car and drove out, with their window rolled down, we made eye contact and the driver nodded, as we both knew that something horrible could have happened, and then they drove off.
Like that anxious traveler in Psalm 121, Yahweh is there when we are most vulnerable. And I cannot explain why there is great suffering and tragic violence in the world where some are spared at times. But the one who watches over us, the God who keeps Israel, the God who made heaven and earth, is who is with us throughout our life and after, no matter how long or short that pilgrimage may be.
Collette Nies Von Hanna, MDiv, MSSW, lives in New Braunfels, Texas with her 4-year-old adopted daughter, Emberlyn, and is working on her DMin dissertation in Land, Food, and Faith Formation from Memphis Theological Seminary. | 
