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    On the Trail of Life
    On the Trail of Life
    On the Trail of Life
    Ebook122 pages2 hours

    On the Trail of Life

    By L.R. Abbe

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    About this ebook

    Thomas Hardees life pivoted around his job and his wife, Debbie. Then one day, due to the poor economy; Thomas was laid off from a job that he held for nearly twenty years. Almost one year later to the day, on a Wednesday morning, Thomas found himself facing the reality that his wife had just been killed in a terrible automobile accident. The life that he once knew and that he had become so comfortable with was turned upside down, and it left him in a cloud of confusion. It was impossible for Thomas to feel any enjoyment in his life without Debbie there with him.

    He finally sought seclusion on the hiking trails that he visited when he was younger before he and Debbie had even met. It was on these trails where Thomas confronted Jesus head on and face to face. It was out here where he asked those questions which hurt him the most. Why Debbie, my Debbie? What did she do to you? Why? What did I ever do to you? Why? The more he asked, the more that Thomas learned. He was shown that it isnt one particular denomination or one religion by name that is going to save us. Its only Jesus that is going to get us into heaven, and it is only in His Words where we can find out what He wants for us to do.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9781449720070
    On the Trail of Life
    Author

    L.R. Abbe

    L. R. Abbe grew up in a small Michigan town. He was brought up in a Catholic home of five. After several years of unanswered questions, he packed God, Jesus Christ, the Catholic religion, and the Bible all up in a closet, and shut the door. Twenty years later, he was reintroduced to the Holy Bible.

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      Book preview

      On the Trail of Life - L.R. Abbe

      Chapter One

      As the sun began to peek through the darkness, Thomas Hardee walked along one side of the yard, pulling a brown dumpster as he wheeled it to the front of his driveway for trash pickup later that morning. As he placed the dumpster by the curb, he grinned because of the noise cutting through the peace of this early Wednesday morning. Thomas began to wonder what was making the most noise, his flip-flops squeaking with every step he took after he had walked in the wet grass, the dumpster squealing as its old, weathered plastic wheels rotated, or the birds singing off in the distance at the morning’s rising sun.

      As he turned and started to make his way back to the house, he could easily see the trail he had just made with the dumpster—a pair of parallel tracks winding through the dew on the grass. He thought it would not have taken much of an investigator to retrace his every step. As he was about enter his front door, he noticed his neighbor, Bob Smith, driving down the street on his way into the city to begin another day at his job. Their subdivision was just a couple of miles off Highway 57. From there, after a short twenty-minute drive south, one would enter the city of Wallopsville.

      About a year ago, Thomas was laid off from his job of nearly twenty years. He missed his job. For a long time, it was all that he knew. He looked forward, each and every day, having to go to work for another ten-hour shift. Thomas had really enjoyed his job. His days over the past few months had mostly involved keeping up with the yard work. He had the best-looking yard in the entire subdivision. He pruned all of the trees and cut the grass neatly three, sometimes four times, in a single week. Once he cut it twice on the same day. All of the edges around the yard were finely trimmed. He had squared up all of the hedges, trimming them to look their finest.

      Thomas found the task of keeping up with the yard work so easy that he once again had too much time on his hands. He remedied this by starting to build outside furniture that he scattered throughout his yard. Then he built various plant stands to help show off more of his yard. But eventually he again found he needed something more. It happened one day as he was working out in the yard, transporting some lawn debris out to the small woods on his land. He had parked the tractor in the woods to unload the trailer of the yard scraps, when he realized he had forgotten to haul away some other yard waste near the house. Rather than starting up the tractor, driving it back to the house, picking up the scraps, and then hauling them back to the woods, he decided to walk back to the house and carry the small pile of debris.

      On his return trip, as he was about to enter into the woods, he saw a branch blown down from the wind. The branch was leaning against a tree. As Thomas walked past it, he envisioned carving a walking staff from the branch. The staff would have been just like one that he had made when he hiked the trails regularly some twenty years earlier. Dismissing the notion, Thomas continued on to the scrap pile, unloaded the trailer, and then drove out of the woods.

      Two months later, almost to the day, when Thomas entered the woods, he noticed the tree branch once again. He was walking through the woods, gathering limbs so he could burn some trash that had been piling up around the house. Rather than picking up this branch, he passed it by and kept on walking, gathering limbs. There was no particular reason why he decided to pass up the branch leaning against the tree, but he did.

      About two months after that, Thomas was sitting in his front room debating with himself about what to do with some of the spare time he had that day. His mind wandered to the idea of cutting the grass, but he quickly dismissed the idea since he had cut the grass just yesterday. He could make some more furniture for the neighbors, but he really didn’t really have a need to fill, since he had already built all four of his neighbors in the cul-de-sac picnic tables and Adirondack-style chairs.

      This Wednesday morning, Thomas’ wife Debbie was getting ready to leave the house to run into Wallopsville for a health checkup. She had noticed how depressed her husband had appeared lately. Each day he seemed a little antsier as he made his way around the house. He was spending so much time alone that she kept an eye on him. Thomas had never been secretive in the past. She was really worried about her husband. She enjoyed him being at home with her. But she also enjoyed seeing a smile on his face. She loved seeing his passion for life reflected in his eyes. She had been praying for Thomas since he had lost his job; she knew how much that job meant to him.

      As Thomas sat in his chair, enjoying his cup of coffee and thinking about something to do, all of a sudden he remembered that limb. He jumped up from his seat and looked out the back window to see if the branch was still leaning against the tree. As he looked for the branch, he found his line of sight to the tree was blocked. So he put down his cup of coffee, swung open the back door, and headed outside. Debbie was keeping an eye on him that morning. He had been acting peculiarly, and she was worried about him. When he had jumped up from the sofa, gone to the window, and then exited the back door, her concerns had greatly increased. She went to the door and peered out at Thomas, making sure that he would not be able to see her. Thomas walked directly to the woods and headed straight for the tree holding up that limb. As he approached the tree, he saw the limb. An excitement overcame Thomas like he had not felt for several months. He rushed back to his shed to get the chainsaw, so he could trim off just the part of the branch that he wanted for his new walking staff.

      Debbie wondered what he was doing. She thought maybe she was imagining things, doubting Thomas’s sanity, when suddenly he exited the shed with his chainsaw in hand. She was alarmed, so she went onto the back deck and hollered to Thomas, asking him what he was doing. When Thomas replied that he was cleaning up a fallen branch, she realized everything was okay. She remarked that she was leaving to head to town for her appointment. The two blew kisses at one another. Thomas turned and headed for the woods. Debbie went into the house, but turned to watch Thomas just a little until he started up the chainsaw. Then she shut the door and got ready for her doctor’s visit.

      After Thomas had everything all cut and cleaned up, he returned to his shed with the chainsaw and his special branch. His entire outlook had changed from wondering what he could do with his spare time to planning how he could make his walking staff from the branch. Thomas felt as though he now had a need in his life for something more significant than just cutting the grass and sitting around drinking coffee.

      Thomas entered the shed and turned on the lights. He put the chainsaw back in its case and began looking for the knives he used years earlier, to carve his walking sticks. After about thirty minutes of looking through old toolboxes, canvas bags, and even in his old backpacking gear, he decided he could not find his tools. He walked to the house, only to find Debbie had already gone to town for her appointment, so he walked to his truck to drive to the hardware store to get some carving knives.

      About an hour later, Thomas pulled back into his driveway, ready to work on his tree branch. As he was getting out of the truck and heading toward the house, he noticed the mailman had just pulled up to his mailbox, so Thomas turned and walked back to the street to get the mail. Nodding to the mailman as he drove off, Thomas reached into the mailbox. He glanced quickly at the various envelopes. Shutting the box, he headed toward the house. Just as he went inside, his cell phone rang, alerting him that he had just received a text message. He glanced at the screen. The message had come from the Pastor at his old church, New Covenant First Assembly Church, making a prayer request for one of the members in the congregation. Apparently the family had just found out that a relative had suffered injuries in a bad car accident.

      Thomas entered the house and walked straight to the hallway between the bedrooms and the main bathroom, He bowed his head and prayed. This was the area in the house that Thomas considered his prayer room. He didn’t need to be in a room with closed doors to talk with God, but it was here where he was able to focus all of his energy on Jesus and speak to Him aloud. He started His prayer, as always thanking Jesus for everything that he had been given in his life. He was so full of thanks and praise. He thanked Jesus for his wife and for their kids; he thanked God for what they had meant to him in his life. He thanked God for his house and his yard and for the grass that he needed to constantly cut. He thanked God for his neighbors and what

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