Good morning! How's your life journey going?
I'm guessing you got up this morning with a pretty good idea what your day would look like. If you were in a car, chugging along, up ahead there would be a line of nice, reliable checkpoints: getting breakfast, feeding the cat, the dentist appointment, heading to work or a hundred other little dots on your map today - and tomorrow and next week and next month, and even down the road a decade or two. You probably have a vague idea how you think it will all go. Where you'll be. Who you'll be. Your life as you've got it all laid out. Marked out on the map, nice and clear. You're zooming along the road and doing fine.
Now imagine that just as you drive around the bend, suddenly there's a huge sign ahead of you marked "DETOUR". Or even, "ROAD CLOSED." There's an arrow and an exit veering off, and you don't have a choice. You clutch at the steering wheel and wrench it to the right and now you're on a whole new road, with no idea what's ahead. The life you had planned has disappeared.
That's what change is.
We've all had those moments. You can probably remember them well. Sometimes they're wonderful: the letter that opened the door to your future. The words that set you on a new path of marriage or parenthood. The relief of a doctor's words, promising a good recovery. The day you met a new friend or a new love, or brought home a new pet. Good things ahead - but challenges, too.
Then there are the other kind. The phone call in the middle of the night. The solemn face of a doctor on the other side of the desk. The screaming headline that sits you upright and appalled at the breakfast table. The lump in your breast, or your neck, that wasn't there before. The note in your paycheck envelope at work.
I think our serene confidence in what the future holds has gotten a lot shakier in the past few years. We're seen all too well how life can change in ways we never would have imagined. Remember driving through your town when we went into lockdown, seeing all those deserted streets and closed stores? Suddenly the world we knew was gone. Detour ahead.
Change after change after change, and the normal we used to take for granted still is off in the distance somewhere. We're still bumping along unfamiliar roads, struggling to find our way.
Take a deep breath. It's OK. I have a suspicion that we're not as helpless as we feel.
Picture yourself again in your car, maneuvering over ruts and turning those blind corners. But now imagine that on the seat beside you there's a toolbox, rattling gently with every bump and turn. It's full of the help you need. You carry it with you everywhere you go. Most of the time you don't even think about it - yet you're using it all the time.
What's in your toolbox, I wonder? What's in your life that can help you make your way through uncertainty?
Well, everyone's answer is different, of course. But I'll bet you could sit down and make a list without much trouble.
There are probably people's names and phone numbers there - family and friends you know you can call on if you need to move a sofa or hear a friendly voice, or someone to pray for you when you're being rolled into an operating room.
And all your skills are in that box, too. Whether you're good with numbers or with people, comfortable with computers or a hammer or a tax return or a frying pan, your skills have kept you afloat over the years. And if you're young, they can point the way and help you get started down that road.
Don't forget to count your character. How does your personality help you get through hard times? A sense of humor, creativity, grit and dogged determination - all of it, and much more, including your love and resilience and courage and faith, is stowed away in that precious box of yours for whenever you need it.
When I think of us all, each of us winding along these crazy roads, pausing at intersections and scratching our heads, sometimes I just wish I could whisper to everyone, Hang in there. You can do this.
So when you get in your car to head out into your day today, stop and remember that box with all your blessings and tools inside, and take a deep breath and smile.
One more thing. You might run into trouble today. Maybe you'll find yourself broken down by the side of the road, and you've rummaged through your toolbox and tried everything and you're at your wits end - look way down at the bottom of that box and you'll find a little scrap of paper with just three words on it: "Ask for help."
The help you need is probably just over the hill.
Very true and inspiring Heather!