Faith

Sailor Take Warning

On November 24, 2025 by Elle R.

Two days ago, I needed to take my teenage son to Boston for a necessary medical procedure that his doctor doesn’t perform locally.

Boston is a little over an hour from my home and I was dreading the drive. My late husband, Barry, was always the chauffeur when we had to go to Boston for any reason. We were polar opposites when it came to driving – he loved driving like Jeff Gordon loves Nascar, while I preferred enjoying the scenery on a slow walk. This was my first solo drive into Beantown and I was prepared to grit my teeth and white knuckle drive it. Boston traffic can be summed up with – “Did you know it takes two hours to drive from Boston to Boston?”

Knowing the traffic and the …uh…enthusiasm of Boston drivers I left an hour and a half before sunrise, in the hopes that would give me an edge. Boston drivers aren’t called Massholes for nothing, people.

For the better part of an hour, driving was smooth sailing from my town towards the hospital. Then the GPS chirped up a warning of an impending slowdown that would make us late for our arrival time. Would I like to accept the alternative route?

Feeling a bit like this was a metaphor for my ‘confident on the outside but freaking out on the inside’ widow life, I reluctantly hit the ‘accept’ button on my phone. Battling the existential crisis inside me that my feisty GPS started, I told myself to look at the side trip as an adventure and an opportunity to see parts of Boston that I’d never seen.

Fourteen minutes outside of Boston is a beach town named Revere. ( Yes, “The British are Coming!” Paul Revere, Revere.) As I was cresting the slope that brought us into Revere, I was dazzled by a bright red sunrise that bathed the cityscape in a warm rosy glow.

I turned to my son and remarked, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.”

He looked at me quizzically and I explained that this was an old nautical weather warning based on the sky color at sunset or sunrise. Feeling my years, I explained, when you see a red sky at night, this means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. Dry weather ahead. A red sunrise can indicate that there is high water content in the atmosphere. So, rain -or snow – might be on its way. I told him to check his weather app on his phone. He performed a cursory glance, saying nothing was on the horizon, but I got the feeling he didn’t dig deep, because he had games on his phone that intrigued him a lot more.

The hospital procedure went smoothly and we began the drive home. The sky had been crystal clear on the way in, but now it was completely overcast, a blanket of grey clouds. I felt a little smug pointing it out like I was some sort of weather genius.

The following day I spent a large chunk of my day drafting a budget for the month of December. In some ways it helps me to have a visual, as I can check things off and feel a teeny sense of accomplishment. As I told one of my children the other day, I never went to widow school, so every month I learn new things about myself through trial and error. I have a deeper and more profound respect for my husband now knowing how much he carried and even shielded me from. It’s not that I didn’t know, per se. But his mere presence lightened the load. Staring back at me from this month’s list were utility and tax bills, winter clothes, therapy visits, dental visits, educational assessments, my teenage son’s birthday, and…. warning… warning…. red sky in morning…. my first Christmas with Barry in heaven and me and the children here.

My older son added some necessary comic relief when he walked by me scribbling my list and mocked my annoying inner critic. Taking my thoughts to the worst case scenario, he said, “DON’T SCREW IT UP. DON’T MAKE A MISTAKE. OR EVERYONE DIES.”

It’s easy to laugh when it’s put like that.

I confided to a friend that I don’t have it all figured out. Should I be open about my challenges and ask for help or keep everything between myself and God, knowing He is ever faithful? She said to me that it can be both, and more, as God’s help is not limited to any one particular formula. I can trust my fears, feelings, finances and my faith to Him. The same God who keeps the sun, moon, stars and clouds in motion has certainly got His eye on me too.

I don’t mean to be wishy washy in my faith, or afraid. I don’t want to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees when they were testing Jesus by asking Him for a sign from heaven.

You know what Jesus answered them?

  “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’;  and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening. Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” Matthew 16: 1-4.

These two groups of people could understand, interpret and accept, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning,’ but all the signs Jesus had given them already they were somehow blind to.

I heard the warning in that. I need to constantly remind myself of all Jesus has done for me already and I am back to sailing on smooth seas.

I wonder if Jesus felt a little smug when the first snowfall of the season came down today just as Friday’s sky had predicted. I smiled at it like a child and welcomed another Christmas season.

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