I hadn’t been this way in years.
All I remembered was the barren desolation.
I’d forgotten the stark beauty.
Flat, straight and smooth
Lonely and alone.
A road that seems to unfold endlessly in front of us.
Once we make a northern turn, houses are few and passing cars are fewer.
It feels like very little has changed in the last one hundred years in this part of northeastern New Mexico— paved roads instead of dirt, and a few telephone poles and houses now dot the landscape. The old adobe hovels are forever abandoned for indoor plumbing and electricity.
In fact, I usually avoid this stretch for a more populated route, but this year, in a hurry to get home, I listened to Dad who insisted it was faster.
As the miles fly by, I daydream of ranching and unrealistically romanticize about finding peace in the simpler life of days gone by.
I expect to see cowboys or indians or at least a few head of buffalo rumbling by.
We raced the cloudbursts which surged around us, teasing with the promise of rain—rain we could see in the distance but never actually gave us more than a few fat plops of water on the windshield.
But oh the lightening!
Flashes in a light show— spectacular to see.
The thrill of a storm on the prairie brought back childhood memories, of watching them coming for miles as the sheets of rain steadily approached the parched plains.
As we got halfway into our solitary jaunt, there it was.
Our flat mind-numbing road suddenly took a dive and down we went into the canyon that yawned before us. Curving and winding, we descended into the flatlands below. Red clay formations rose above, cocooning us against a beautiful wall of color.
When life seems to be full of sameness and solicitude, just hold on–like the road, there will be a dive ahead. And eventually we will be thrown a curve or two or ten.
When the doctor’s bills mount
And the car breaks down,
And there is way more month at the end of the money.
When family members announce devastating changes.
And the future is more uncertain than ever,
And death steals our beloved.
When that canyon opens up before our feet, we must hold on to the things that will get us through.
The beauty of nature he unfolds as a womb of peace,
The hand that will gives us security in a world of insecurity,
The voice that will guide our way.
The promise that will soothe our fears.
As we look for the peace providing beauty that he has created for us now, just think how much more spectacular our heavenly home will be as hinted at in the writings of Paul in I Corinthians 2:9, “…What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—
As the road continues to wind, I hear that old gospel song playing in my head, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue…”
***************
Psalm 84:5-7 And how blessed all those in whom you live, whose lives become roads you travel; They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks, discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain! God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and at the last turn—Zion! God in full view! (Msg)
-What curves have you been thrown this year?
-Ask God to help you navigate with your eyes always on him.