I recall when we moved from southern California up to Winchester Idaho. I was 14; we traveled in a motor home up highway 101 up the California coastline. My parents sold almost everything we had; sold the Lincoln and mom's hard-top convertible 55' T-bird with 3 on the floor, and it had a Hurst gear shifter - racing engine and all (we all cried when that happened); we lived in an executive home outside of Escondido near San Diego...but, there we were, modern Bedouins heading for parts unknown.
It was a brave venture. Few people that I've ever known have had the fortitude to launch out with 4 kids in tow and leave the security of a good paying real estate career (dad) and the hostess position for the Lawrence Welk Resort (step-mom)...but that is just what they did (thank you mom & dad). While we did not know our ultimate destination, we knew the comforts, the friends we loved and the familiarity of our home that we were leaving behind. Having the hopeful perspective of youth, it was all exhilarating to me. We spent a night at Bodega Bay - that's where they filmed the movie The Birds - scared the heck out of us kids...every seagull was suspect..we screamed and ran into the motor home more than one time that day to get away from the killer birds.
On another night we spent it in a lot at Pismo Beach. We ate our fill of Pismo clams that night...it was so fun.
When we got to Portland, we hung a right and headed to Idaho - our Uncle Floyd and Aunt Bonnie ran a halfway house for mentally and physically challenged people. And, that's where we landed - they offered my dad an administrator position - we stayed. While waiting for my parents to find a home for us to buy, we lived among the patients in the halfway house for many weeks. What a heart opener. I embraced the friends I made there -most were 30+ years my senior, but they won my heart and gave me a deeper appreciation for the blessings I'd known; health, laughter, love and my family.
It was a most excellent time of my life.
I have had other ventures that have led me to many heights of happiness and those filled with the bitterest of sorrow; but regardless of what type of experience that came my way, each had in common an element of leaving behind the familiar and a necessity to embrace the new - to accept the things I could not change and to embrace the comfort of the Lord ~ I recall the molestation I experienced as a six year old boy by my mother's boyfriend (my parents had divorced when I was very young) while she showered....I can still recall the fear and confusion of that experience.
I remember when my pastors died in the crash of Alaska Air flight 261 - I can almost feel the hot tears streaming down my face several years after...and I remember the passing of my dear friend, Cliff Clare - he was like a father to me...tears falling like rain from my eyes - I remember those painful and horrid experiences, yet within the memories I recall a deep deep comfort- a confidence that the hand of my Heavenly Father was there holding my hand - drawing me to Himself. There was a quiet sense that I was not alone and that I could trust Him with my deepest sorrows, with my tears and grief and all of the questions that flew through my mind; and, I could trust Him to bring the greatest joy of His Presence into my daily life.
I also remember winning the mile race for Jr. Olympics in southern California - beating runners 2 grades higher than me. I remember finishing every cross country race I ever started (3 years worth - 1 1/2 to 3 miles each). Victory. Yes!
I will share a secret with you. I know why that deep confidence was there; with every painful experience (including my real mother's abandonment of me and my brother in Phoenix when I was seven) I did not blame God. Even in my youth I had an understanding that people are fallen and wounded, and that wounded people wound others. I grasped that the world is a dangerous place. And, I knew that I was not the cause and I knew that I was not the cure.
In the wilderness that life can be, while we are sojourning from one place to another, there are oasis along the way where we should drink in great draughts of refreshment. They can be found every single day - in moments and in people we don't even expect. They are needed and should be cherished...because life shifts and changes and the world is a dangerous place.
In my earlier post (below) I speak of finding refreshment by quieting ourselves and our surroundings so that we can simply be with the Father. I believe that, with all my heart, God is found by anyone who willingly, consistently and persistently waits -without wagging an accusing finger in His face - to hear Him and to openly receive from Him assurance, grace, forgiveness and the needed strength to overcome and to cope. There are things we never get over - we just get on with living our lives.
Just be sure you're not traveling alone.
Dave
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