my future is no uncertain thing

I was out cycling this afternoon - the first time in a while. I borrowed a friend's bike and headed out with some friends. Out, down the hill, and here we are away again. Everything else forgotten, just my steady friend, the road, running underneath my wheels, and the familiar burn in my legs, and the sickening feeling of a full stomach plus a coffee jumping around down there (perhaps we timed the ride badly). Pushing up the hills, rolling down the far side, resting. As I ride, I watch the countryside push slowly past me - the grassy fields, cows idly watching us ride; the vineyards, the occasional house; there's some really beautiful countryside not far out from Lilydale. The sunset, to my left, is beautiful. Soft yellows and pinks against some cotton-wool cloud are forgotten next to the flash of metallic reds and oranges that stand on the horizon in place of the sun.

A thought strikes me.
"We'd better head back," I say to Dan Chan, the Chinese-Mauritian student and avid cyclist next to me.
So we turn around and begin to go back the way we came.

Half way there, I get off my bike. Jye and Dan cycle back to investigate the problem.
"It's too dark," I say. "I'm going to walk back." It might seem I'm just trying to avoid riding up the last big hill, but it's not the case. I'm wearing dark clothing and my borrowed bike doesn't even have reflectors, let alone lights. I'm less worried about seeing the road than I am about being hit.

They talk me into riding. "Take the back streets," they say. "Less traffic." It'll be ok.

Riding back, everything's fine. Several cars pass, but they've all seen me and given me some room as they pass. As I ride up to a roundabout, I can see several cars have stopped. Jye and Dan, some distance ahead of me, pass straight through the roundabout, just before three cars go left to right through the roundabout. One, two. You'd better stop, I say to the third car. I've got right of way here. I enter the roundabout, keeping an eye on him. Halfway through. He enters the roundabout. I enter his headlights a metre in front of his bumper. I swerve. He stops. Probably shakes his head at me. So do I.

They say every accident is a result of a chain of mistakes. Bad timing of the ride. Riding on an unfamiliar bike with no reflectors or lights. Wearing dark clothing, with no reflective strips attached. Deciding to push on despite knowing it's unsafe. Ignoring the fact that the sky is getting darker by the second. Insisting on my right of way through the roundabout.

Fortunately God has a plan for my life, and obviously has things for me to do yet.

"My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

"your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139:15-16

Read all of Psalm 139.