Flying Above the Cross

When Our Eyes Are Lifted Higher

Crosses of Mercy

We first saw the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Groom, Texas, more than twenty years ago on our way to Phoenix with a group of youth serving a church plant there. We stopped to explore. We did not stop at the Cadillac Ranch, though we saw it from our van windows. After all, one would expect a Christian youth group to stop at a cross rather than buried Cadillacs.

The 19-story white steel cross was a feature of our drives to Colorado, a trek we began taking annually when our youngest was still in high school. Over time, we tired of I-40 to Amarillo. If ever you have driven I-40 west the scenery begins looking the same.

Some years ago we began dropping off of I-40 and took state highways through western Oklahoma and into the Texas panhandle. We enjoyed driving through the small towns, often stopping to eat at recommended restaurants. Sweetwater. Wheeler. Mobeetie. New Mobeetie. Pampa. Borger. Dumas. Dalhart.

Recently we made that trek again.

Just outside of Wheeler we saw an installation of Crosses of Mercy.

One night in 1984, Bernard Coffindaffer of Craigsville, West Virginia, told his wife he had a vision in which God audibly spoke to him about erecting a series of three wooden crosses along roadways around the world. Coffindaffer said the trio of crosses was to remind people that Jesus was crucified on a cross at Calvary for our sins and will return soon. He began the project near his West Virginia home in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains and in less than a decade, thousands of crosses sprang up across the eastern United States. . . .

Over the next nine years, Coffindaffer erected approximately 1,864 sets of crosses in 29 states, the District of Columbia, Zambia, and the Philippines. One of the most inaccessible sets of crosses was raised on a mountaintop 800 feet above the U.S. 19 expressway at the community of Birch River. Their installation required the crew members to haul the timbers onto a 30-foot cliff at the summit.

Coffindaffer died in 1993.

In 1999, Sara Stevenson Abraham took up the mantle and established Crosses Across America, Inc., headquartered in Vicksburg, Mississippi. This organization aims to locate, restore, and maintain Coffindaffer’s crosses. The new crosses, made from lighter, wind-resistant materials, continue to be planted across the United States, with a goal of placing them every 50 miles along highways.

The three crosses on Highway 152 just outside of Wheeler, Texas is just one of the many installations begun by Coffindaffer. We saw it again on this recent trip. Only this time something was different. Maybe it had been there all along and I just missed it. A flag pole extended above the crosses displaying the American flag.

Above the crosses.