I yearned for a long, hard run this afternoon, but found my clogged sinuses and achy throat a hindrance to my endeavor. I instead decided on some fresh made juice with extra ginger, and have settled in to an afternoon dose of musing. I first went to the scenes of Northern California where one year ago I was crawling up the curves in my weighted down old Subaru. She'd been smoking since Montana, but this day was especially hot, and drier than bones. I snaked along the belly of the mountains and wove through lavender fields, peach orchards, and shanty towns with large "Cerveza" signs. I distinctly recall a four way stop where I felt like the only traveler to have ever passed that way. I found a radio station that pumped that high kind of mountain music, and hoped a little that I might not ever reach my destination. I had a perma-grin plastered on my face, and my hair was stuck fast to my salty cheeks. I'd cried a lot since I left Montana, and the 18 hour drive to California ended up taking two days. Upon my departure, a dear sister had gifted me a most treasured box filled with sweet notes and scripture, and while reading, driving, and crying, I missed my road by at least an hour. In the west, roads don't always come as often as in the east, and when I was confronted with the reality of having to turn around, I decidedly said no. The bus driver from a Red Cross caravan advised I turn back, but seeing how futile that seemed, I took the road that ran parallel the highway, and lead myself on quite an adventure.

The road I took was gloriously beautiful, but I later found it to be called "hell's highway," and one that has claimed many lives. Ha! Indeed, it almost claimed the life of my old car, but somehow she dragged herself along those low coulees, and high mountains. I got spit out in the Bitterroot valley, and ended my long day in Idaho. I stayed in a motel that night and remember scrubbing my feet for what seemed to be hours. I slept needfully and set out for Nevada in the early morning. I wonder why I am telling this now, just as I wondered why I'd missed my road then, but all becomes clear in the by and by...

My dear friend called in the a.m, and cackled in her familiar and consoling way. She laughed off my follies and encouraged in her way; my burden lifted and I rolled along. Later, the phone rang and a new acquaintance appeared on the scene. The terrain was strange and grey, but very beautiful; it seemed tremendously wild and rolling, on a stark and melting canvas of ash. The voice on the line spoke of India, her daughter, and her love; our Lord. Tucked away in my doubts and doldrums, lay fresh hope that this new soul quickly uncovered, stoked and ignited. My deflated spirit lifted some, and this new presence was as the breeze that changes seasons, and the gentle hand that turns a page--thus closing a chapter.

Many hours lapsed and I received another call in Reno. I watched as the curtains closed on a scene I could have never arranged, and I wept some more as the sweetness savored, slipped through my fingers. I entered thick hemlock groves and deep winding roads. The wildflowers peppered every spare inch of ground, and divine shards of light sliced through every open limb. Sorrow and joy sing sweetly together, and my wilted hands reached out in enlivened praise; heaven touches humanity where the holy heals the profane, and that great gospel light again birthed grace to my soul. I was tossed out at the bottom of an enormous canyon that was littered with perfectly round and bulbous boulders that were scattered like meteors. The road seemed to have been built in fits of laughter, for the river below mocked in its placid unfolding down the canyon. The perfect wilderness ended abruptly and I was launched onto a four lane highway without even noticing. A great smile had plastered my face, and without my realization, my wrong turn had lead me on a soul-rendering two day journey with my Lord. He reaches me in the silence, and takes the ash heap of my sins and failures, and shines His great love through the cracks, thus revealing that gold cord of His faithfulness. Unpack your days in the light of that love; be reminded with me, tell the story that grows sweeter with time...