on the road to Notre Dame de Lourdes

my buddy Lyle the baker called me up yesterday to ask if i'd like to join him on a road trip today. he owns an organic bakery that finds local ingredients for everything they make and he had to take a 2 hour trip to Notre Dame de Lourdes for sunflower seeds that will be pressed into oil for their bakery. i have the week off, i really love Lyle and i had stuff to discuss with him so i jumped at the chance to spend some time with one of the people i love best around me.
here is what the road looked like as we travelled to a sleepy prairie town.



we drove along small town highways and conversed on deep subjects like i can with few people in this world. i wept a little, he wept a little, and we kept on travelling as we concentrated on the road directly in front of us.
that pic doesnt do the journey justice. there were occasions where we could not see more than a hundred feet in front of us or so ... and yet i was not nervous about the journey at all because we were safely secured in the cab of a Peterbilt truck and my driver knew the road on which we travelled. the wind howled and blew snow over the road the whole way there and back. there were occasions where clouds of snow obscured the road completely and yet none of this snow was falling down from the skies, it was all being blown at us sideways, trying to knock us from our perch and offcourse. it was perilous when taken on its own and yet there was no peril for me in the journey whatsoever. we concentrated on the hundred feet in front of us and eventually we had put in a full day's work and worry, only to return home safe.

as i sat securely in the cab i couldn't get away from the idea that i need to concentrate on the hundred feet in front of me in other areas of my life right now. things are dark and dreary, they're perilous and i have no idea how things will turn out for me. i weep on the journey and i mourn those things that i've lost or those things that should've been. i resent and rail against God for those bruises and flesh wounds that should not be as they are.
but i am safe in the cab of a Peterbilt truck, and my driver knows the way there. it's ok to weep and mourn. it's ok to rail against God. it's ok to question why things are the way they are. i just need to concentrate on the next hundred feet and trust that my driver knows the way. someone that i know has walked here before ... and i am not lost amidst the blustering wind that can knock me on my ass. i am safe.
that is the truth of Christ that i dwelled on today. i still have no answers for the blustering wind and the freezing cold that is coming my way

but i am not alone, i am safe.