The sunset found us on the road home, painting the journey with a quiet sense of inevitability.  The drive back to Galveston was, for the most part, uneventful. We got a later start than expected — life on Sovereignty Ranch has a way of filling every hour — but we were grateful to take our friend Mike to the airport in San Antonio, stealing almost an hour with him before he flew to Orlando for a show.

Mike has a servant’s heart. He’s one of the people responsible for bringing Confluence to life each year in Bandera, Texas — a gathering built on community, contribution, and the quiet power of shared purpose. I watched him work at two Confluences, moving through long days with a kind of effortless selflessness that caught my attention immediately. I finally walked up to introduce myself, and from that moment a genuine friendship was born.

That small detour landed us squarely in afternoon traffic, and it wasn’t until the sky finally caught fire at dusk that we crossed the causeway and returned to the island.

We were home only a day before Adi noticed it: the tarp on our porch — the one that covered our three mountain bikes — had been ripped away, revealing that only two bikes remained. Mine, the one I’d debated replacing earlier in the summer, had already made the decision for me. It was gone.

I’d had that old jalopy for more than fifteen years. I rode it through the dissolution of my first marriage, through the long, aching season of being separated from my kids, and along the parks and trails of North Texas where I tried to rebuild some sense of myself. It was a Specialized — a mountain bike I bought back when I was just beginning to learn how to treat myself kindly. After the divorce, I spent so much time beating myself up that buying that bike felt like an act of mercy, a small investment in the man I was trying to become as I gathered the pieces of my life and attempted to glue them back together. It wasn’t just a bike; it was a companion, a kind of quiet confidant, holding miles of my life in its frame.

When we finally decided to move to Galveston, I knew I had to bring that beast with me — not so much for the riding as for the memories it held. Leaving it behind would have felt like leaving behind an old version of myself I wasn’t quite ready to let go of. So I loaded it into the U-Haul for the trip south to the island, a quiet passenger riding shotgun with all the pieces of our new life. Once we got here, I only took it out two or three times, just enough to reassure myself it was still part of the story.

On one of those rides, Adi, Wesley, and I went out for a family bike ride. Wesley blazed ahead of us, glancing back only occasionally to “see where the old people were.” Adi and I followed at an easy pace, the kind where conversation drifts in and out with the wind. At one point I said, almost casually, “Maybe it’s time for me to get a new bike.”

The metaphor wasn’t lost on me. What I really meant was, Maybe it’s time to close this chapter and begin a new one.

My last ride on that bike took me on a solo trip down to the harbor to watch the Royal Caribbean ship depart for its weekly journey to the Western Caribbean and Mexico. I remember standing there as passengers waved from the port side — faces bright, hands lifted to whoever came to see them off — each one about to embark on a vacation they had probably spent a year saving for. There’s a nostalgia in watching someone set out on their dream journey. The romantic in me loves seeing people finally step into something they’ve always hoped to experience.

I didn’t know it then, but that quiet evening at the harbor would be the last time I would mount that steel horse — a loyal companion soon to be sent out to pasture.

When Adi said, “One of the bikes is gone,” I knew in my heart it was mine. It was the only way it could be. Each morning I rise with the same prayer on my lips: Bring me today whatever is for my greatest good and the greatest good of all. And standing there on the porch, I knew that prayer had been answered in an unexpected way.

My old companion had found a new guide, and this angel in disguise — whoever they were — made a decision on my behalf that I would never have made on my own.

It reminded me of the old story of the Chinese farmer who had a prized horse. One day the horse ran away. The townspeople rushed over, full of sympathy. “This is terrible!” they said.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next day the horse returned, bringing twelve more wild horses with it. “This is wonderful!” the townspeople exclaimed.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.

The following day, the farmer’s son tried to train the new horses and was thrown, breaking his leg. “This is terrible!” the people cried.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Then the military arrived to conscript young men for war. When they saw the son’s broken leg, they knew he couldn’t go and granted him a deferment. “This is wonderful!” the townspeople shouted.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.

The wisdom of that story has always stayed with me — the reminder that we rarely know, in the moment, whether something is truly good or bad. When we surrender our life to a Power greater than our own, we move into a place of neutrality. Knowing our prayer has been answered, our task is not to question but to give thanks, even when the blessing arrives in a form we don’t immediately understand.

Maybe the soul who took the bike spared me from an accident I never saw coming. Maybe that same soul needed it to get to work or to feed his family, and since I no longer rode it the way I once did, it was simply time for it to move on. Or maybe — and this feels closest to the bone — I was finally ready to release the part of myself that had carried the guilt of a broken marriage for so many years.

Life unfolds in ways we can’t predict, and our judgments are almost always premature. The missing bike felt like one of those moments. On the surface, it was inconvenient, maybe even a little heartbreaking. But beneath it all, something quieter was at work — a nudge, a release, a gentle rearranging of the story.

Just like the farmer, all I could do was stand there, look at the empty space where my bike once leaned, and whisper my own version of “Maybe.” Life has a way of clearing what we cling to, not to punish us, but to prepare us. Sometimes God removes the things we’re afraid to release — the relics of who we once were, the symbols of chapters long completed — so that we’re free to step into who we’re becoming.

That empty space on the porch became a small altar for reflection. It reminded me that nothing truly leaves our life unless its work is complete. It reminded me that loss is often disguised as liberation. And it reminded me that every ending, even one as simple as a missing bike, is an invitation to trust the unfolding — to thank God for the unseen grace at work, and to meet the next season with open hands.

Standing there, I realized that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It means honoring the journey without dragging every mile of it into the future. My old companion had carried me through heartbreak, through rebuilding, through years of becoming. Now it had carried me as far as it could.

So I whispered “Maybe,” not as uncertainty, but as surrender.

Maybe this is making room for something new.
Maybe this is how God answers prayers we don’t know how to speak.
Maybe this is the exact moment the next chapter begins.