I still remember the moment like it was yesterday, instead of more than ten years ago.
We were driving up a road with numbers for a name, RR 620. A driving range, a greenhouse retailer, stone yards rolled along beside us.
I had changed my name, changed my city, changed my career path.
I missed rollerblading at the beach, a coffee shop with a fireplace, hiking in the Hollywood Hills, the temperate climate, a church family who knew me, and my mom and dad and friends who loved me.
Looking back now, I realize I was straddling the ravine between young adulthood and maturity. I was unwilling to make the final leap and accept the consequences of my choice to be a grown-up.
I was mourning the loss of my life before marriage.
My sensitive, unemotional husband gripped the steering wheel tightly and said gently, “When are you going to be over this?”
To this day, I can’t explain what happened when I heard those words.
A gust of grace had blown me across to the other side.
I left my sorrow behind, dried my eyes and calmly declared, “Right now.”
Many times, when the weight of circumstances has felt like more than I could bear, when the past pulled me away from the steps I needed to take toward God, I have remembered what happened on 620. I have remembered how the light of love was able to heal heal my brokenness when I accepted God’s choices for my life.
The past can be left in the rear-view mirror with the driving range and stone yards.
