You Are Here

Y O U A R E H E R E

“Where are we?”

It’s the same question asked for the umpteenth time in five days.

“I am SURE we need to go this way.”

The routine response from either my husband or myself.

Or not.

And we’re off again, back to the other side of the metal island.

“Dang it! Let’s look at the map….again.”

Y O U A R E H E R E.

That curing feeling of relief washes over us; the relief of knowing exactly where we are. However, the sense of “being a complete idiot” also hangs over us since this is day five of a seven day cruise.

“We should know this by now. . .”

I stood there looking at the illuminated YOU ARE HERE part of the elaborate map and had an epiphany.

We all need YOU ARE HERE moments.

These pauses in life are a
remembrance of where you came from,
a declaration of where you are and
a glimpse at where you are being led.

This happened all throughout the Old Testament. God would instruct His people to build an altar (aka, place rocks) at a given spot, to later act as a physical reminder to them of whatever awesome thing He had just done for them –so that they would not lose heart..

If you’re like me, you can forget to mark these moments. The Israelites, even with God’s reminders, still forgot. Perhaps if they had attuned their hearts to this practice of pausing, remembering and attuning more to God’s direction, they would have grumbled less and not have worn out their sandals so much.

Like the Israelites so often were, my friend (& editor) Hannah was dazed and confused by what was happening in her life last year. People she held close to her heart were abruptly being plucked away, whilst dreams she clung to (good dreams, the Godly kind) were becoming less and less tangible. In the arithmetic of life, she was experiencing more loss than gain– leaving her in the negative. Although she loved Jesus and wanted to follow Him, she began to question whether He was for her or against her. Her desire to stop the bleeding and stop wandering around in the desert brought her into my life. After meeting with her several times, we began to see that Hannah’s losses, although painful, were the things leading her to a place of new beginnings. (YOU ARE HERE.) She just needed me to ask the right questions and confirm what she was beginning to see.

I was (and am) elated to be a part of Hannah’s story. To be there for the moment when she realized she needed to turn the music loud and put on her dancing shoes! God actually had her where He wanted her. At that point, she knew God “had not left her, or forsaken her.” (Heb. 13:5)

Unfortunately for my friend Dana, she had to lead ME to a place of clarity–one of those moments– which ended in tears, not cheers.

June 2015, Dana and I were back at the beach for the annual girls beach trip. This year, my heart was not hurting for lack of friendships like it had been the previous year (thank you Jesus), but was hurting nonetheless. I learned that my lifelong friend and mentor, my mom, had pulmonary fibrosis. There was no cure. She could stave off the symptoms for a while by learning to breathe deeply and by exercising, but eventually her lungs would harden.

My mom was an outstanding woman of faith and a student of the Word. She taught at two weekly meetings up until she was reliant full-time on oxygen. People would come to her house, even after her diagnosis, to be fed both physically and spiritually. I respected and admired her very much.

However, as her breathing became more difficult, she stopped walking, breathing deep and anything else that was suggested by her doctors. It frustrated me so much. I became fixated on the fact that she just sat in the chair and allowed this to happen to her. . .to me.

The last day at the beach, Dana took my arm and asked me to go to the vacated pool with her. We sat down on the steps and she initiated a conversation concerning Mom. As usual, I began to complain about my mom not doing certain things. Dana stopped me, looked me in the eyes and said, “Your mother is dying. It’s time to accept that.” (YOU ARE HERE). She then guided me to my new reality and allowed the truth the settle. Tears.

A few months ago, I returned the “favor” to Dana.

She was going through her own personal hell on earth. She was forced into facing many of her biggest fears, while having to deal with a lot of unanswered questions that affected every aspect of her and her family’s life. Her coping mechanism for times like this is to barricade herself into her own life and hunker down. (Sidenote for us all: declaring that something is your coping mechanism does not justify using it.) Although I desperately tried to be the friend she wanted (one that sat on the sidelines and waited to be called in), I had to be the one she needed. So, one very rainy day at my favorite coffee shop, we met for a quick exchange and our first face to face “hello” in a month. After she got what she came for, thankfully, there was no quick exit. The torrential rain freed us to move past the “hello” into a very clumsy conversation exposing her to her YOU ARE HERE moment. Because she knew how deeply I loved her and saw how concerned I was, she was able to hear my heart without too much offense. I wish I could say I was eloquent and equipped with an arsenal of scriptures. I wasn’t. But hey, if God can use Ballaam’s donkey to speak truth (Num 22:28,) I could be an ass too.

It’s funny but sometimes he will use an ass (the non-donkey kind), or a preacher, a spouse, a child, a scripture or a sunset (so many possibilities) to bring you to that place where you stop running from one end of the ship to the other and realize exactly we you are. Realizing sometimes we need to break into a happy dance, embrace the reality, or even repent. But also knowing that YOU ARE HERE is just a moment. Don’t camp there.

“Sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” – Dr. Seuss

With that said, here are some scriptures I’ve been chewing on:

I Peter 5:19-20 – “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death covers over a multitude of sins.”

James 1:19 – “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.”
(Hearing truth from someone can really suck, but apply this scripture. You just might learn something)

Proverbs 27:5-6 -”An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”