Close Calls and Coffee

I was on my way to Mom and Dad’s for a quick early-morning visit over a cup of steaming go-go juice known affectionately in our circles as “black and bitter” coffee. The day had all the makings of organized chaos as the calendar wasn’t capable of holding another appointment, chore, or honey-do, so I was in a bit of a rush to say the least. Now, it is possible to make the trek from my place to my parents’ house on 100% paved, perfectly solid blacktop roads…BUT…the quickest route is down a dirt road that is notorious for slick ruts and deep mud holes when it has been raining, and it just so happened that the night before had been filled with a steady sprinkling of dust-settling, mud-making H2O! You can predict how that trip down the road went!

The picture above was taken immediately after the slip and slide incident on the road I shouldn’t have taken anyway.  As I glanced in the rear view mirror, I noticed two things: (1) The road was in worse shape than I expected it to be, and (2) The sun was just coming up in the East. This moment, which is etched into the hard drive of my brain, made me realize something: In life, there will be times when we take the wrong road, go through difficulty, or just wish we could have a re-do on certain things. However, the blessing of going THROUGH these times is that we can view them from the perspective of life’s rear view mirror, and that’s when we are able to learn from them. It was David in Psalm 23 who commented that even though he was going “THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death” that he didn’t have to fear anything. Why? “Because YOU are with me.” The YOU, of course, is God Himself.

Question: As you go through life’s valleys, is God with you? If not, I would encourage you to invite Him into the vehicle for the ride that yet remains. If so, I remind you that even in the difficulties of life, the sun still rises on our mishaps, and there’s always a hot cup of coffee just ahead!