Tip of My Iceberg

Summers are often opportunities for travel; even staying home can give us space to try things we don’t normally do during the rest of the year. Journey’s of a few steps or many miles.

We’re all on an ongoing adventure, close to home or far away; we keep going because stopping before arriving where we want to be isn’t a desired option.

Many places we drive around Orlando have guard rails on the road, not to limit but to protect. One of my children learned that the hard way when they spun out of control on a patch of slick oil; the guardrails kept her from going into oncoming traffic.

Other roads haven’t had the benefit of such safeguards. Mountain roads come to mind, where the steep and windy often have drop-offs that are quite dangerous if you stray too far from your lane.

Detours also complicate journeys because they throw off my sense of arrival.

When I go somewhere, I want to get there. I need to pay attention.

Keeping my eyes on the road and not being distracted by the sights and sounds around me is a good place to start.

Roads that are unfamiliar require more attention. I will be forever grateful for the people who created GPS in easy to use phone apps. It does mean I need to trust my GPS when it tells me something. Second-guessing it, thinking I know better than a satellite view is a little arrogant.

Getting lost happens. Detours are often unavoidable. Not always because I made a bad choice or got careless.

When John and I were first married, he had recently purchased a new car that I got to drive. I taught thirty miles from where we lived, all country roads, and I knew the one way to the school.

One Friday on my way home, I was confronted with a group of workers laying tar on the road. I had no idea of how to get home any other way, so I slowly drove through the workers, smiling at them. Not understanding why they were all laughing at me.

I picked John up from work, and as I drove up, I watched my husband’s face morph from glad to sad/mad. He walked to the car as I scooted over and asked, “What did you do?”

He told me to get out, and I saw a layer of black tar covering the bottom of the car, windows on down.

It took him two hours and a gallon of kerosene to get it off.

There will be those times in life where we’re covered with the junk of others’ decisions and bad choices. We took a path we thought to be right and it wasn’t.

But God.

He’s in it with me, every step of the way. He’s as concerned with how I get somewhere rather than merely the destination.

Life is madness, full of turns and detours; I can’t live anticipating making the wrong decisions.

God is with me.

Aware of my bad choices and mess, and loving me through it.

No matter what I’ve covered myself with.