When I was eight my family moved to California. My father was a minister and had been assigned to a small congregation near Los Angeles. He bought a fancy car with cruise control and a skylight so that we would enjoy the trip. I say "he" rather than "they" because that was how my parents made decisions.
Dad went to AAA before we left to get a slew of what were called triptiks. They were tailor made books composed of every road on your journey. There were probably twenty of them, outlining in yellow marker each interstate, exit, and intersection. My brother Karl had a knack for maps, such that he used it as wallpaper for his room in high school. Karl was the navigator, helping dad
to follow the three thousand miles between Pennsylvania and California. I just looked out the window, and pretended that I was riding a horse.
The other day I went to a hospital for a test. I had never been there before but that was not cause for concern. Before I started the motor I simply plugged the address into the app on my phone. For the next half hour I was given
concise instructions. They arrived right when I needed them, as opposed to a glut of folded paper in my lap before I began.
The difference in travel still makes me smile. Dad had to plan ahead, find experts, and read the fine print on maps that opened up like origami. I simply heeded the voice on my phone.
As it happened, John was assigned to the same congregation in California twenty years later. We even found some of my father's sermons in the file cabinet. Ferrying my brood on those freeways necessitated me wrangling with maps too, and my older kids helped. Some of our favorite sections of the county had pages that were torn and had to be held together with tape. We still arrived at our destinations. I could not have imagined
a day when a mobile device would be my cheerful guide.
As I ponder the ways God offers guidance, these three scenarios resonate. Sometimes I just sit in the back seat. I appear at the next point on my meandering way without having participated. A couple of jobs arrived that way, without any fuss from me.
"Who are you again? You want me to make you a memory quilt?"
Other scenarios leaned into micromanaging. Putting on the marriage conference for those thirteen years entailed months of lists, and hundreds of conversations trying to arrive at a program that would serve people.
Then there is the small voice. She is the one that pipes up precisely when I need her, nudging me to turn now. She was the reason we bought a house on Alden Road. Amazingly, John agreed, having never had a chance to see it.
It turns out that is how we make some
decisions.