A winter moon, bright and full, shown above us as we left the monastery early yesterday morning. It escorted us down the mountain, along steep and winding roads, as the headlights of the car illuminated the heavy, snow-covered branches bending over us.
The moon followed us to Interstate 64 , past refineries with belching smokestacks and into the rolling, white-fenced pastures of Kentucky. For two hours, the moon hovered above us, until the sun rose, pink and quiet behind us.
“What is this like for my son,” I wondered as the moon faded and the sun gains strength, “Driving away from one life and toward the next? What must he be thinking? How can he do this?” We drove all day, and he gave no indication of qualms or second thoughts, and we arrived home at nine o’clock last night.
This morning, I was three steps outside the door when I stopped to take this picture. The moon, the tiniest bit smaller than it was yesterday, hung above the trees along our driveway in the rich blue morning sky. It had followed us from West Virginia to Iowa. I basked in this assurance that some things will stay the same, no matter where my child goes: the sun will rise and set, the moon will wax and wane, God’s sovereign hand upon him, and my love and prayers for his new life.
Some day, when he’s settled in an apartment, a framed copy of this photograph will be my housewarming gift. When he asks me why I called it “Faithfulness,” I’ll remind him of the moon that followed us from West Virginia to Iowa and of the sovereign God who created it.
