Keep Taking Steps

Keep Taking Steps

My husband happened upon a Craigslist listing for 300 pieces of Advantech sheathing for sale in Nashville for cheap, which was used to build the set for the TV show Nashville, so he borrowed my father-in-law’s 1992 Dodge Ram diesel and trailer to pick it up to use on the house we will build.

I didn’t get to see my husband driving this truck, but my sister-in-law passed him on the way to the YMCA. As we warmed up on the bikes, she told me about seeing him in the cab: the windows down and a grin on his face as wild as his hair.

That night, my husband said, “That truck isn’t just redneck. It’s crazy.”

He had to make two trips in two days to pick up the load. The first trip, he got two flat tires: one on the truck and one on the trailer. The second trip, he was a few miles from his destination when the old Dodge started shimmying. He went to his destination first and then called around.

A mechanic’s shop was just up the road. He thought it was the wheel bearings, but it turned out to be the tie rod ends. If they had broken, my husband would’ve lost steering control of the truck. If they had broken while carrying a full load, while driving through Nashville traffic, the result would have been catastrophic.

He got home around suppertime, and though he’d had a long day, the two heavy loads were up at our building spot, and he was safe and sound. He said, “I know I have a father watching out for me.”

I thought about that incident over the past week. My husband’s truck still broke down. He still had to sit and wait for the part to arrive and for the mechanics to repair it. He still had to navigate traffic and sweat with the windows down. Couldn’t that “father” have orchestrated everything to go a little more smoothly? To keep the tires from going flat, to keep the tie rods from breaking, to get the air conditioner to blow cool air?

But our father God isn’t our hotel concierge, who does our bidding to make us comfortable. He is there to comfort us in the midst of discomfort. To offer us hope when we feel hopeless. To guide our steps on the journey, but we still have to take those steps.

The other evening, my eldest daughter and I were out in my garden. My poor garden is pitiful. It’s been my project this summer, since my husband’s been working on our house, and the weeds are threatening to overtake the plants. On the way back (all of four yards), my daughter asked me to carry her. My sweet girl already comes up to my shoulder, and she is half my weight. I said, “You’re a big girl now. You have to walk on your own, but I can always hold your hand.”

Unless Jesus heals my husband, he will undergo his second craniotomy in October. Sometimes, I wonder why we’ve been asked to walk through this discomfort. I wonder why He—who formed our miraculous bodies—couldn’t just “carry us” by zapping that little grape-sized tumor, and we could go on with our lives the same as before.

But Jesus has been showing me that this journey is not just for us, just as your journey is not just for you. We each have been entrusted with something to carry on our walk, and yet, our discomfort draws us closer to the Comforter, and closer to each other, as we encourage each other to keep taking steps.

Take a moment to look at your life. Was there ever a moment when you knew Jesus was walking beside you?