detour

God is radically changing me.


This morning on my way to the gym, willing my car to warm up,  I saw someone walking in my direction on the sidewalk. In the dark. In minus four degree windchill. I took a second look as I passed the pedestrian, and it was a young African American girl, maybe fifteen or so. Um, no, I thought. No one should be out walking now. At the exact same time that I passed her I was adjusting my rear view mirror and it snapped off the windshield. Nice.


I drove around the block hanging onto my dangling mirror in search of the girl. Where in the world would she be walking this early in the morning, in the dark, in this cold? I spied her crossing the street and rolled down my window. "Good morning!", I said cheerfully so as not to startle her. Through a series of questions I came to find that she was on her way to the high school, which was two miles from the place where I stopped. My heart dropped. I asked if I could give her a ride and she said yes.


We introduced ourselves and I apologized for my dangling mirror. I came to find out that she was walking to the bus only about a block away that would transport her to school. Her name is Futi but she goes by Sondra. I was intrigued and knew I was supposed to take her to school rather than just drop her at the bus.


Sondra moved here from New Mexico six months ago with her mother who needed a job. Her family is originally from Tanzania, Africa, but she was born in the U.S. She told me she has an older sister in college, and of her own plans to finish high school and hopefully land in New York for college.


We chatted a little about Africa...I have two friends who recently adopted children from there, but still I know very little about the continent. Sondra said there are many problems there (in Africa) including how people hurt each other, but that it is a good place.Her tone was warm and reminiscent. I asked about her father and she explained to me that her mom was his second wife and since he couldn't pay the tax on his seven children (I'm assuming...five with his first wife, two with her mom), he divorced her mom. She's only made one friend at school since moving here: but she's from the Congo and speaks French so they practice English together, which we both agreed is a tough language to learn.


She told me thank you and goodbye when I dropped her off. The minute my wheels left the parking lot, I began to weep. I have no idea what life is like outside of my comfortable little warm fuzzy life. I have a warm house, food in the pantry, three amazing kids whose tummies never go hungry, a devoted husband who is working his tail off to support us while living out his ministry dream, amazing friends, and every amenity that I could ever want or need to live this way.


I took a girl to school today and it only cost me ten extra minutes on the treadmill. There isn't much I am doing that actually costs me something. Which is another reason I am being changed. I need to give more and get less. (Stay tuned for future posts regarding this subject. You won't be disappointed.)


I love finding analogies in daily life that God uses to school me about eternal things. That dang(ling) mirror was no exception. The lesson came to me so quietly but firmly: Leave the past behind. Stop looking in the rearview. Don't care so much about what others think. You need to look forward to the things God has for you. Look for the detours He has set up for you and go for it.


I'm thankful for my detour this morning. I'm going to be looking for more of these. And I hope to run into Sondra again soon. I have much more I'd love to share with her.

"Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:13-14


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