My wife bought me a new wristwatch for my 50th birthday. It was Swiss-made, with a bright orange band and big, royal blue dial and much nicer than my old one. Proud to fasten it on my wrist, I wore it to the polls yesterday.
Wearing it took my mind back to another year when I got a watch for my birthday. It was 2004, the day after the presidential election, and I remember it distinctly because it was perhaps the first such election in which I’d gotten mentally and emotionally involved.
It was a tough one. George W. Bush carried a lot of baggage due to the Iraq War, and the news media, even back then, weren’t making things easy on the Republicans. I specifically recall the night before the election, when historian Jon Meacham told an MSNBC anchor that he thought Kerry would win. I also recall telling my dad the next day that I thought it was going to be a tough one. “They think they’re going to win,” I told him. The exit polls seemed to favor this notion, so much so that I remember a report about Bush’s response to the bad news: “It is what it is.”
But Kerry didn’t win.
As the results came in, it was clear fairly early on that Bush was going to get a second term, and that the anxiety I’d carried since the day before was premature. Thus, I experienced the Republican win like a breath of warm, fresh air in a previously cold and unwelcome climate. I especially felt this the next day – Nov. 3, the day of my birthday – when I was riding through the town of Auburn with my new watch on, a watch my future wife had bought me. The times were looking up. My grades were good, and my creative writing teacher recommended I apply to the writing program at Florida State University – one of the best in the country. Rose and I were engaged, and Republicans had just taken the White House for four more years. Not least of all this, I had my new watch: the object which, at least in that moment, seemed to be the symbol of all my good fortune.
I thought about that watch yesterday morning when I put on my new one. In light of all the stress over who was going to win this year, I couldn’t help but remember how I’d felt back in 2004 – and how well things had turned out.
“We’re going to win this election,” I texted Rose, then sent her a picture of the new watch on my wrist. Don’t ask me why now, but trust me. I have my reasons.”
I don’t mean to say that there is anything lucky or magical about watches, or any object that seems to hold some personal significance. Rather, what I want to say is that what I was feeling when I put the new watch on my wrist is that our Lord is faithful. He keeps covenant with his people, and seeing the new watch reminded me of this – of all the intervening years between 2004 and now – and how wonderfully he’s seen us through it all, despite all the worry and fear.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in this country that is still so divided in so many ways, but I do think we’ve been given a reprieve of sorts, though for how long it’s impossible to know. And I also know this: no matter what happens, He will see us through. For, without a doubt, our times are in His hands.
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at allen@kellerlumber.net.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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