Safe

    Our belated birthday trip to the City for Daddy's birthday came with a scare yesterday.   Have you ever lost one of your children?   I have never misplaced one of them for longer than a few seconds.

    We were biking along the river (which is very high still from the spring runoff) on the bike path.   At the midpoint,  we stopped to walk through a wildlife park,  but Ian kept on going,  and in our distraction over James (is he getting sunburned through the canopy?  does he need to eat?  should we let him keep sleeping? etc.) we didn't see him disappear down the path.   When we noticed he wasn't with us,  we thought he was just ahead of us in the wildlife park.   We spent a few minutes calling his name,  half running down the paths,  thinking he would be just around the next bend.   About that time,  he had turned around and biked back up the path,  but didn't see our bikes at the park and just kept going right on past.   We came out of the park,  separated and and started searching. 

  15 minutes later after pedaling hard,  I was all the way back to our vehicle. I had questioned nearly everyone I passed about a little boy, 4 years old and alone.    I begged and borrowed a cell phone from a complete stranger,  called back to Mr. Wonderful,  who had just found Ian.   He had gone off the path,  talked to several different people,  and was with a man who was getting ready to call the police.  

   God is merciful,  and our boy Ian is safe.