Translated from Swahili to English, “leo ni leo” means roughly, “Today is THE day,” the day of anticipation, the day when it is really going to happen whatever the it is, a momentous day. Yesterday I received a phone call that oxygen was being delivered to my husband’s bedside and I knew he had taken a decline. I quickly went over. He had covid and so I had not been able to visit all week. I was expecting a decline. Again he was in bed, unresponsive, fighting to breath. The oxygen made him comfortable and I opened his Bible by his bed. It was The Message translation. I read Psalm 23 about walking through the valley of the shadow of death but then turned to Psalm 121, the psalm he called his dating psalm. Verse 7-8 talks about God guarding his going out (on dates) and coming in. I read it several times to him.
121 1-2 I look up to the mountains;
does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.
3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
Guardian will never doze or sleep.
5-6 God’s your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.
7-8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.
At 4:05 am the phone call came that he had passed from my care into God’s eternal care. He is no longer in a wheel chair and no longer crumpled over in deformity. Truly, “Leo ni leo!” God is guarding him now.
On the Way to Wonder 