From Point A to Point B to Point C

When we got married, I started out driving a 1989 two door gray Blazer that still had a tape deck and I still listened to cassette tapes. I loved my little gray Blazer. My young husband had sold his black 1993 Chevy stepside pickup right before we got married and bought the Blazer for us.

When my son was born in 2003, we brought him home from the hospital and we also brought home a new-to-us navy blue 1994 Suburban. Plain Jane inside with vinyl and bench seats, but I was thrilled. I’d always liked Suburbans and never was too pumped up about minivans. I’d driven the bright cherry red Suburban of the lady I baby-sat for when I was a teen and I’d liked Suburbans ever since.

I still liked my little, gray Blazer, but it only had two doors and it wasn’t the easiest thing to get car seats and babies in and out. Now I had two babies and I was happy to have four doors. A few years in found me with a pink  iPod Shuffle that I could connect to my tape deck and listen to my playlist with a mixture of Robin Mark and Alan Jackson and the Antrim Mennonite Choir.

Our navy blue Suburban started to accumulate quite a few miles and found us starting to look around here and there at a bit newer Suburbans. I knew two things I really wanted in our next new-to-us Suburban. Bucket seats in the front and I wanted a white or silver or tan one. I liked the neutral colors, with white as my {our} preference.

{While I did want bucket seats, there is much to be said for bench seats. Today’s generation is missing out on that whole-riding-snuggled-up-right-next-to-your-significant-other. I remember so well, sitting in the middle next to my boyfriend and then my husband and it being the norm to see couples riding beside each other in pickups.}

{the littles ~ they weren’t so happy at this point in the journey. They weren’t pleased when Dad & Mom decided to get rid of the blue Suburban. They wanted pictures taken with it before it left our farm and family.}

We were on our way home from somewhere that I don’t remember, and we happened to pass a small used car lot. There was a 1999 white Suburban tucked in it, so in we swung to take a look. Lo and behold, this Suburban was in nice shape, didn’t have way, way too many miles and it had an interior like my brother’s 1998 Chevy pickup. I’d long loved the bucket seats in his pickup. The price was right and we ended up with a new-to-us Suburban really sooner than we were expecting to get one.

So, there we were. From A to B to C.

With changes along the way. Some slow. Some faster. One thing consistent. That life is ever changing.

Today finds me still driving my older white Suburban and I still love many things about it. It’s starting to get the miles piled up on it and I’m not quite ready for that.

I mused about it all today as I drove home from town listening to Travis Cottrell.

Life is such a journey from point A to point B to point C.

And so on.

This summer has found me slow. Recovering still. Limping some still. Slower than I’ve realized at times.

I reflected back over the last several years of life and it correlated so well.

There have been some really tough places and I’ve felt like we were walking along at times, not necessarily blind, but with landmines detonating right beside us, blowing up and lacing our path with bits of shrapnel and causing us to duck and watch wide-eyed as at times we were wounded and at others, to stand, feeling helpless, as people we love were hurt and devastated.

Watching and feeling the hurt ourselves, as pain and betrayal seeped over onto us.

Asking which path we were to take. Asking what we were to do. Asking what point we were at.

If getting wiser as you get older means having more questions and less answers, I’m getting wiser. And maybe it is a lot that. Learning to depend on Him, instead of things or people or institutions. Learning that He will overcome. Leaning into Him, because He is all there is.

Jesus Overcomes.

I am overcome. I am overcome by the way He has carried us and the way He has lead us and the way He breaks open places and breaks down strongholds and says, “Child. Right here. You belong to me. I CAN HANDLE IT. I never meant for it to be up to you.”

He has brought us from Point A to Point B to Point C.

Figuratively limping at times. Facing questions too big. Wondering when to wait on the Lord and when to take the next step.

Wondering when to roll up our mat and follow the directions.

John 5

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Luke 5

One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

Jesus often required people to make a decision and to exercise faith.

We have to choose and we have to pick up our mat and walk.

He holds out His hand and He is ready for me as I choose to get up, roll up that mat, and take each small step in faith with Him.

He is there all the time.

From Point A to Point B to Point C.

Thank-you Jesus.

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