A friend of Melissa’s (our daughter) went to great lengths to prepare her birthday gift. The gift was a unique collection of items that connected promise and timing and encouragement specifically for Melissa in her plans for this year. The package was mailed from Mississippi to Texas and made it to the end of Melissa’s driveway, but she never got the gift. Every step of the gift’s route was traced, confirmed and documented by the post office from the sender to being set upon Melissa’s mailbox. The mailbox was the threshold of fulfillment, however, there was an unpredictable, unprecedented and unreasonable culmination of circumstances at that point. The mailman said the driveway was too flooded to deliver the package to the porch and so he set it on the mailbox and honked to notify the man he saw on the porch. Spring rains had indeed flooded the drive, but there is no explanation for the “man on the porch,” since there was no man on the premises (that had any right to be there).
This incident was interference becoming a weapon used in a threshold war. A “threshold” is a doorway of decision or choice, a place of entry into new potential and change, an opportunity for fulfillment or taking new ground or laying hands on promise or crossing a line of no turning back, but interference causes circumstances to collapse or go awry in war at a threshold. It is like standing on the shore seeing ships in the distance that are headed inland, but do to navigation errors or sudden weather or tide changes, they pass on by or disappear into the night. 
(This is the first excerpt from Kathy Gabler’s article “Hands Off!“. More excerpts will be posted Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.)