JOY ALONG THE WAY: REMINDER FROM ABOVE BY WINGED EXPRESS

"The heat index for today is in the high 90s," the weather reporter droned on as if some needle was stuck and the voice was coming through a miasma of foggy humidity and week-long weariness.

It wasn't even 9 a.m. Already I was tired and listless. As usual, I read from my daily devotional booklets, stacked them neatly on the nearby table and leaned back in my chair with an almost audible sigh.

The reading had been about the Heavenly Father wanting to give good gifts to his children...ask and ye shall receive, etc.

"What I need now, God," I said aloud and paused to let some priority of needs rise up through the irksome discontent of dog days, "is a big, fat butterfly." I shook my head in wonderment at my words when there were so many other desirable things -- a cool day, rain, the pain in my shoulder to leave.

Maybe there was some slight reason for the surprising, almost impertinent request. Butterflies had been fluttering around in my mind for a long time; that is, the scarcity of them. I had noticed that fewer butterflies had been coming each season in spite of the fact that I had carefully tended my phlox and set out more butterfly bushes. I had even written to our state's conservation department to ask if I was the only one who had noticed the scarcity. "You are right," the editor said. "So much spraying is being done that is not healthy for butterflies."

I slowly mustered the energy to read the daily paper. The news seemed as monotonous and locked in time as the hot, humid days. More people are dying from heat exhaustion. Crops were being damaged by the heat. Shooting sprees in public places continued. No rain was forecast.

I filled a watering can to water my hanging pots of petunias, although all of them had been abused to some extent as I tried to save water. "I won't use much," I whispered to myself.

After I had poured the smidgen of water into the pots, I glanced toward the wilted-looking flower border up the back walkway. There, on a butterfly bush, wings spread wide, was the most perfect specimen of a tiger swallowtail butterfly I'd ever seen. My heart leaped up, but only momentarily. The butterfly was too perfect, too big, too motionless. I looked toward my neighbors' house to acknowledge to anyone I could see that I knew what they had done. We often played such tricks on each other. Once I had, in the secrecy of darkness, planted a huge, green-topped onion among their garden onions that were still in infancy. This was their payback time.

No one was around for me to laugh with this morning so I went back inside to get out of the oppressive heat.

Moments later I saw someone drive up in my neighbors' driveway and remembered that I had promised to keep watch of comings and goings while they were AWAY ON VACATION. The realization shot through me like an electric current. I hurried back outside. The big, yellow butterfly was now fluttering from one blue blossom to another. I sat down on the steps to thrill at the answered prayer, to marvel that this "good gifts to His children" promise still held even though the plea had been uttered in a somewhat "fat chance" manner.

Finally, with tears streaking my face, I asked forgiveness for my entreaty which had been so self-centered, so self-indulgent, tinged with worldly flippancy and no real expectancy.

Meanwhile, the butterfly fluttered daintily from blossom to blossom, feeding on the sweet nectar, and as it did, an inner oasis of joy and calmness welled up within me. Through the heat haze I could think clearly again, feel the peace of knowing God's unconditional love is there, even in weak moments of the believer who forgets that God's timetable for answered prayer is not always synchronized with asking, but it can be.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.