Last summer while we were in Corsicana, on one afternoon Emma, Olivia and I took off on a back road adventure searching for an airplane....the picture with Frank in the cockpit.
I thought I had an idea of where it might be so I picked a dirt road off Highway 31 in the vicinity I thought it was, and down it we went. The plan was to follow it until we found the plane, or reached the next highway. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The road I'd chosen looked good at first and all was going well, then right before we got to a bend in the road, we passed a lady in a rugged jeep. In hindsight, I think that jeep was foreshadowing of what lay ahead of us. It would be the last car we saw on the road.
Not long after we rounded the bend, the road surface turned into black mushy Texas dirt, and although I was nervous about the dirt to mush ratio, I said confidently, "I think it'll be OK." And with that statement we continued on our way. But the road was so small even if we'd met another car it would've been a standoff. There wasn't even room for a passing cozy coupe, no places to turn around and no houses in any direction. We could reach out and touch the grass along the roadside. We were still moving, but our situation was looking more and more bleak the farther we proceeded. We had no options. There was no backing up and no turning back...even though I would have if given the chance. It seemed the farther down the road we traveled, the mushier the road became. The mushier the road became, the more nervous I got. The more nervous I got, the faster I drove. The faster I drove, the more dirt flew everywhere. We could literally feel the dirt clods hitting the bottom of the car, and I'd become convinced I'd made a really bad decision. That seemed obvious. But, I continued to drive faster hoping to find the paved highway while the dirt continued to fly. At one point Olivia said, "This will be a funny story." To which I replied, "It'll be funny when this is over."
Honestly I don't think the road was more than 8 miles long, but it felt like we'd never see the end. About halfway into the trip, we passed the one and only house on the road and in the driveway was standing a shirtless man. There was no stopping to see if he was friend or foe. At that point, all I knew to do was keep moving forward no matter how bleak it looked....and it was looking BLEAK.
The entire trip I kept saying to myself, "Why did I do this?" Not only had I put myself in this situation, I had two of my daughters with me. It seemed impossible we wouldn't get stuck. Things were tense.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, we saw the paved highway ahead of us, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The end was in sight. We were going to make it off the road without getting stuck. By that time, I'd long forgotten the reason I was on the road to begin with.....the airplane. I didn't care about anything but getting to safe ground, and we'd never been so happy to see a concrete highway. As we got to the stop sign at the end of the road....but still on the mushy dirt, we had to wait for a passing car. As we waited, we began to feel the car slipping backwards in the mud. We panicked and when I was finally able to hit the gas, the tires started spinning and we all screamed, "Go go go!!!!" (to the car). Thank God it went! We made it! We were on solid ground. I wish we'd taken a picture of the tire tracks we'd left because no one would've believed we'd traveled down it without getting stuck. I still can't believe it myself. I don't ever want to go down that road again.
Well, ever since that happened, it's kept coming back to my mind, and it made me start thinking. I've thought about that road a lot. In fact, I've spent lots of time thinking about it and how it relates to my life in the last 5 or 6 years. The more I thought about it, the more I knew it meant something to me, and I knew God was showing me something.
In the last few years, it seems as if I lost my way. It's seemed like I'd made a turn onto a road I'd chosen wrongly, and it's felt a lot like that black mushy Texas dirt road. It's felt like I was going to get stuck and never make it back to solid ground. The future's looked pretty frightening to me, and I've been frantically searching for somewhere to turn off....but there was no where to go. Many times I asked God to change circumstances, yet they remained the same. There's been no where to turn, and no where to turn around. Even now, I still don't know what's ahead. Faith is the only fuel that keeps me moving, but many days it feels as if I'm running on fumes. In spite of the uncertainty and cloudy future, I know God is faithful. But even so, it's been difficult to keep that focus. It remains a daily process. Some days are better than others. Trusting God in spite of what I see will forever be the hardest thing I'll ever do in my life.
Back to the plane story for a minute....we never found it. Later, after taking to Dale, he told me my memory of where I thought it'd been was not even close. He'd looked for the plane himself and told me it'd been removed from the field we'd first found it in. And he said it was much closer to home than I remembered......just down the road from our house in Corsicana. In my search I'd gone MILES out of the way. Sounds about right.
Many times in these last years I think I've made my road longer and lonelier because I've been mad at God. The things I faced weren't what I wanted. It wasn't in my plan, and I didn't want Him to comfort me. I wanted happy and wonderful. That's not what I got. It's been difficult to keep moving forward especially when I've spent so much time questioning why I was where I was. I've spent hours wondering if wrong decisions caused me to get here, or was it God's plan for me? I still don't know. Maybe I never will. Maybe even as painful as it's been, some back roads must be traveled alone.....with Him.
I'm hoping I'll see solid ground soon.
I'll let you know when I do.
