For Travel Info.... Call...

The sign read "Travel Info Call 511"...

Steve and i are on Highway 24 W sliding through Tennessee on our way to Colorado for 3 weeks of intensive missionary training. We left at 5 this morning and will drive until dark-thirty tonight. The plan is to arrive in Denver by Sunday evening, just in time for church with a dear friend.

We know the "plan" for the next three weeks; for these 21 days, it feels really good to "know". But i giggle to myself, Steve can't hear my chuckles over the music we have blaring in the car. Nothing like some serious,hard core praise music vibrating through your ears and landing on your heart, when you're on this "road".

Why would i giggle?

The sign ---

it says for travel info i can just call 511 and supposedly they have some answers for their callers.

So i chuckle at what they might say if i were to call --- and ask --- about the "road" we are traveling these days.

The past 18 months of our lives have required a completely different type of "map". We have a road Atlas we've used for years. It's reliable and accurate, but it is of no value while navigating the paths we find ourselves on these days.

As we trek along this paved path in front of us, there are so many exits that veer off the main path. Cars come and go, they have come from different places and are headed in different directions. We must stay the course for the road we are on --- even if we do not have the complete "atlas answers" that would take us from here to where we will eventually land. We're on Ambiguity Avenue.

I sometimes wonder if this is Abba's scenic byway.

Speed limit is 70 on this highway --- but it surely feels like we are moving 100mph most days. And then some moments seem to crawl by so slowly. Usually when we move the most slowly, the roadway has narrowed because of "construction". Oh how i know this to be true. Major construction slows everything down.

Sometimes however, we slow to almost a stand still because of an accident ahead. Flashing, whirling lights warn that someone is injured; life for the rest of us slows down, life for the one lying on the roadway has fully stopped. Mistakes on this fast-moving snake-like paved path can cause big delays; mistakes here can completely alter everything. But with patience and perseverance, most will pass through smoothly, steadfast on their course.

Mile markers remind you of how far you have come.

Guardrails force us to stay on course,marking those places that immanent danger would swallow us alive if we ventured too far in their direction.

Signs help so much. They let you know when traffic is merging with you, or when there will be a sudden shift in lanes, or how far it will be to the next rest stop, or where a safe place to lay our heads to rest can be found.

But over it all, two overarching visuals remain. The sky seems to stand still in its greatness overhead and the horizon continually beckons.

The blue skies above us might allow dark clouds to roll under them and even dump buckets of rain on us, but the sky never leaves, it remains, it will not be moved. That same mother-hen-blue-winged guardian may warm us with yellow rays or cool us under the shade of a passing white puffy cloud. But no matter what happens under her ----- she is unalterably present and immovable. Always prepared to deliver needed gifts in raindrops or sunshine or starlight --- this Ambiguity Avenue will not take us out from under her blue wing.

She whispers to us at the horizon line ahead --- she says, "keep steady on Abba's path, He is with you where you now, He will be found when you arrive there as well. Don't veer from this course, don't be enticed by attractive exits, don't get sleepy at the wheel -- remain steadfast in your pursuit of the horizon He has drawn before you. Don't get discouraged at the long distance ahead of you. It all will come together for you --- that line where blue skies touch horizons --- you'll know when you've arrived --- and all the journeying days it took to get there --- will come clear with purpose in a blink of your eye."

Kenya is coming.

Mockingbird Road will be in the rearview mirror.

I'll make a new nest in Kitale.

But the wings of my Father are sky blue underneath and they stretch all the way from here to there.

"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart." Psalm 91:4 


©2012 Donna Taylor/Reaching for the Robe