Intersections

As I have gotten older, it becomes increasingly rare that life offers the simple choice of left or right. Not because the decisions themselves are that much more complicated, it is because I have a better understanding of the consequences of those decisions. 

As children, we must learn the difference between right and wrong, but as we mature, it is the consequences that we will spend much of our time trying to understand. But then the risk becomes allowing the consequences to control our decisions, and not just basing them on the principles of right and wrong. 

Welcome to life.

It all begins to look like a network of highways, rather than a simple crossroads. A slight veer to the right or the left can potentially put us on the wrong road, it is easy to become so afraid of doing the wrong thing that you are paralyzed into doing nothing.

Today I am still thinking about the consequences of "hitting the wall", and how important it is to keep going. Even when you aren't sure what might be around the corner, you have to trust that God can see what you cannot. Not all crossroads come with warning signs, and sometimes the answers don't come right away. But if you will just keep moving forward, God will remain faithful. Again I am reminded of something that happened to me years ago, a morning when a simple intersection became a very significant crossroad.

Just a few miles from my house is the intersection of Willowcreek Road and Route 20; to this day I use that intersection quite often, even though I was almost killed there, twice. 

I will never forget that first close call. 

Some years ago I owned a business, and for a time it did well. This particular morning I was sitting at that intersection waiting for the light to turn green. I sobbed as I clenched the steering wheel, because I was sure that I was about to fail. I had just taken on the largest contract that I had ever had, I had an impossible deadline, I was three days in and I hadn't even gotten started yet, I even needed employees that I hadn't hired yet! The boys were little and we had just bought a new house; I was sure that I was in over my head and I was beginning to panic. So I sat there praying waiting for the light to turn green, on that dark morning before the sun had even risen. As I pleaded to God for help and wisdom, the light finally had changed. I was still so lost in thought and prayer that I simply took my foot off the brake and began to roll forward. Just then, a semi truck that was trying to beat the light, flew through the intersection at, at least, 60 mph. He missed my front bumper by inches. Had I hit the gas pedal and pulled out, like I normally do; he would have obliterated me. Terrified, I slammed on the brakes; I only hope that I scared him just as much as he did me. After I checked my underwear, and for more trucks, I pulled out and went about the rest of my day. And I did make it through that day, and the next day, and the day after that; I fulfilled that contract, along with many more that followed after that one. 

And life moved on.

But as memorable as that was, it is not the reason that I remember that intersection so well. Three years later, I found myself at that same intersection, again sobbing as I clenched the steering wheel waiting for the light to turn green. I had failed, and I was going to close my business. I had recently lost my largest customer to new ownership. I had to layoff all of my employees and there were no more contracts. Norma was pregnant and had been very sick during most of her pregnancy; I was afraid to tell her that I thought we might loose the house too. It seemed like everything had fallen apart and I had no idea what to do next. So I sat there praying as I waited for the light to turn green, on a dark morning before the sun had even risen. As I begged God for help and wisdom, the light finally changed. And in a surreal moment of deja vu, as I started to pull forward a semi truck took the light and missed my bumper by inches. I instantly remembered the first time that this had happened three years before, and all that had been going through my mind on that morning. In that moment the Lord spoke to me as clearly as if He had spoken out loud, 

"I got you through it then, and I will get you through this now."

It has been ten years since that morning. The business is gone, but I have still made a living. We kept the house, but it is my wife and children that make it our home. Above all, God has always been faithful to see me through. I have made good and bad decisions and have lived with the consequences of both; but I keep going. It is an amazing race, with plenty of surprises around each corner to keep it interesting. Some roads don't always end in the way that we had envisioned, but that can't be known until you have gone as far as you can go. As the poet, Robert Frost said;

Two roads diverged in a wood, And I - 

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.