I’m what some might call “directionally challenged.”  The only way a map is of any use to me at all is if I orient it in the direction I’m looking (which just makes sense…) and even then, it’s a toss-up as to whether I can accurately decipher the secret geographical code of finding places that clearly belongs to only a select few!  OK, maybe lots of people can read maps, but I’m pretty sure there’s a genetic marker at play….

That’s why, when my husband (who is in the Mensa club for map readers) and I were on our winter-wonderland hiking trip to Yosemite a couple of months ago I hesitated a bit before heading out on my own for our last afternoon in the park. But I really wanted to test myself and the trail maps were big and descriptive (with lots of pictures!), so Tom patiently and carefully went over the map with me and we agreed on a pick-up location.  It was about a 5 mile marked trail with the main road on one side and the Merced River on the other, and it was in the middle of the valley floor – there was no way to get lost, really…

The first few miles were easy to follow and breathtakingly beautiful. A gentle snow began to fall, and I truly didn’t want the hike to end….I made a mental note to invite my undirectionally challenged husband to join me on this same hike our next trip, and I took the kinds of pictures one takes when everything strikes you as amazing – “stick emerging from snow”, “pine tree branch bowing under the weight of heavy snow”, “a whole meadow of trees covered in snow”….you get the idea.

Oh yea….did I mention it was snowing?  You know what gets covered up when it snows?  That would be the trail….

I wasn’t too worried because, after all, the road was on one side and the river on the other, (and most of the time I could see one or the other) but once I was pretty sure I had overshot my destination, I headed toward the road to get my bearings. Let’s just say I wasn’t where I expected to be.  I came off the trail next to a bridge that I could locate on my map (because, well….there was a picture of a bridge…) and I decided to try to contact Tom to let him know I wasn’t at our meeting place, but it was OK, because I was next to the only bridge that the map showed.

You know what there is very little of in the Yosemite Valley?  Yea….cell service.  So, I wasn’t where I was expected to be, it was still snowing and the sun was beginning to go down. I tried to send a text, though my phone showed I had no service and started up the road (or should it be down…?)  I walked about a half mile up until I came to a road sign that I remembered driving by earlier, and suddenly I thought I knew where I was, but I was going the wrong way and the light was fading fast – I worried that Tom didn’t know where I was, (and that he would be worried) and I had no idea where our meeting place was from this location, but I had no choice but to just keep walking and trust that eventually I would get back to the village and somehow we would reconnect.  So, I turned around and started the half mile back down the road, wondering where I had gone wrong – I thought I knew where I was supposed to go, but I had definitely gotten off trail somewhere along the way….

When I had made up the half mile, I noticed something in the distance that hadn’t been there before.  I got a little closer and saw it was the most beautiful little black Nissan Sentra, parked on the side of the road….next to the bridge.  Somehow my text had gotten through and Tom located the bridge on the trail map and was doing the only thing he could do, which was stay at the bridge and hope I would find my way back.  I was so happy to find him at that bridge, and even happier to be found!  =)

I haven’t been physically lost many times in my life, but I know what it is to be lost in other ways….and I also know what it is to be found.  There have been days I’ve felt like I was truly just wandering through life, looking for anything familiar to point me in the direction I need to go.  And I expect there will be more such days ahead….life can be hard and the journey long.  We suffer losses that weren’t on our life “map” and it can send us headed in all the wrong directions.  Then, I’ll get a “thinking of you” text from a friend, or realize I still have that tiny seed of an old dream, or I hear a song……and suddenly God reorients me and shows me where I am – that I’m not lost, just wandering a bit, and he will always, always…. be waiting for me by the bridge.  <3

I’ve been listening to this song by I Am They called “Over & Over”, and it speaks of the love of God that finds us wherever we are, no matter how far we drift or even run from Him.  It’s a love song, really, a song of redemption and reclamation when we don’t feel like we deserve a new beginning.  But grace doesn’t count chances….God will find us as many times as it takes….over and over again!

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Over & Over Again
I Am They