Introductory Post - How Did I Get Here?

Have you ever turned down a road that you thought was the right one, but found, as you travelled, that it was not the road you should have taken?  Sometimes when that happens, the solution is simple:  just turn around and go back the way you came.  However, the further you have gone down that road, the longer it takes to get back to where you were supposed to be. How many twists and turns happened on that road before you realized your mistake?

Whether we are talking about navigating actual roads in a vehicle, or the broader picture of the proverbial roads that are determined by the choices we make in our lives, and sometimes choices those before us made, that set us on the path we have travelled.  When we are born, we join with our parents on the road they travel, and we are, theoretically, taught how to navigate that road.  Their environment is our environment as we are growing up.  When we leave home, our paths become different because we take different turns and start shaping our own paths and making our own way.

For me, this blog represents a new road.  A new direction in my life.  There has been much back-tracking, and wandering to figure out where things went wrong, and try to move forward from a better place.  Thankfully, God put me in a place to receive what He wanted to show me, and He put people in my path who were familiar with the path and have helped me navigate so many things along the way.  And that process is not over. 

Part of how I process things is through writing.  I started a blog several years ago, as I was walking through some really tough things that I didn’t even have the capacity to understand.  As God revealed more and more to me, part of the healing of those things was to not only write about them, but also to publish them in a blog.  That can be a very intimidating thing…..just to know that other people could see something that was so personal to me.  I didn’t understand it at the time, but I knew, without question, that was what God was instructing me to do.

So, the blog name that I wrote under for several years was “Somewhere Between Disneyland and San Quentin”.   The name itself was representative of the place I felt like I was trapped.  It was not a good place, and I had no idea how to get out.  Looking back, God guided it all so beautifully. 

At some point, after coming through so many difficult and challenging things that I never imagined would, or even could be possible, I recognized that God was moving me into a new season.  He was doing a new thing, and He was instructing me to write through the new process, as I had done the previous one.

The problem was that every time I tried to write something, I just couldn’t focus.  I would write and delete it over and over again.  I asked God over and over again what I needed to do, because I knew that He was directing this, but what was preventing me from being able to follow through?  It occurred to me (which means God gave me an answer!) that it was the name of the blog.  New process.  New name.  So, I tried, with my limited technological abilities, to navigate changing the name of the blog on the site I was using.  I tried for what seemed like FOREVER and couldn’t make it work.  I even contacted the site’s tech support, and I was still unable to make it work.

My plea: “God, I am TRYING to do what You have asked of me, but nothing is working.  Please help!”

That’s it.  I used to think that prayers had to sound eloquent and well thought out in order to be effective or be “done right.”  God doesn’t need to hear a “performance” from me.  He KNOWS me.  He KNOWS my heart.  I can come to Him, as myself, and just talk to Him.  So, that’s what I do.

God was faithful to answer in His time.  The solution had to be more drastic.  I couldn’t just change the name of the road I was on:  I had to walk on a different road entirely!  So, the reason I was unable to make anything work on “Somewhere Between Disneyland and San Quentin”, was because I was not there anymore.  I was in a new season and on a new road.

As I continued to seek the Lord for directions on what to do next, He was so gracious to answer.

He gave me a name and a scripture.  The name: Redeemed Roads

The scripture:

Isaiah 35:8

“A highway will be there, and a roadway; And it will be called the Holy Way. The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for those who walk on the way [the redeemed]; And fools will not wander on it.”

So, here we are now.  There will likely be things in this process that will be difficult for me to write through, and especially to publish.  But I trust God that it will bring about all that He intends.

Feel free to comment, but let’s practice love and kindness. 

Welcome to this part of my journey.