When the Map Changes

Not all who wander are lost.
     J. R. R. Tolkien

Two years ago, my (Michael) wife Kathy, my mother and I traveled to Germany to visit our son Adam for a week. We took a two-day side excursion without my son (who had to work those days) to visit an old friend who is now living in her native land. We were grateful to have had no problems driving to her home about two hours to the west, along the French border. We navigated with our son’s GPS and were thrilled that we could do it in German! The visit with our friend was delightful, a wonderful reunion and time of sightseeing around her region, including the charming city of Strasbourg, France.
 
When we were getting ready to leave our friend’s home for the journey to our son’s, we consulted a map and decided to take a different route back. This new route, a straight line (supposedly) between our friend’s home and our son’s, would take us directly through the middle of the famous Black Forest, one of Germany’s most beautiful areas. Our friend assured us that it would be a good way to go, if we followed the prescribed route and that we would easily be back before it got dark. So we plugged in the GPS, bid goodbye and started on our way.

Indeed, the route was beautiful. It was spectacular, in fact, well worth the detour off the highways and major roads that we had taken on our way the day before. But at some point, without us totally realizing it at first, the GPS took us off the prescribed route we had thought we would travel. Suddenly, we were driving up steep switchback roads, very narrow, with no guardrails. The higher we climbed, the steeper, obviously was the drop off the side of the road. My mother and wife exclaimed numerous times about the absolutely breathtaking views. But I missed most of them as I carefully navigated the precarious climb, trying to avoid the cars flying toward us around each horseshoe-like curve in the road, desperate to avoid plunging to certain death off the side of the road, watching the line of cars growing behind me. I couldn’t compete with those who were used to these roads, these curves. I just hoped that I wouldn’t anger those following me too much. But if it meant not having a head-on collision or falling off the side, I was more than willing to take the risk.

Along the way, we also went through many small and postcard perfect towns, with the narrowest of streets, towns and areas that it seemed no non-German had likely ever seen. We followed slow-moving tractors on their way home from plowing the fields. We saw lots of cows and horses and quaint farmhouses. We were definitely following the “scenic” route, but were unsure quite a lot of the time if it was really the right way back.

Then it started getting dark. It was obvious this would not be a two hour trip anymore, even a three hour one. The journey had become rather stressful; the uncertainty of where we were and if we were even traveling in the right direction (because we couldn’t tell from the map) was starting to mount. Because the rental car I was driving had so many lights and buttons and screens and numbers, I honestly had no idea how much gas we had in the tank. I started to worry that we might run out – and there were absolutely no gas stations anywhere in sight anywhere along the way. To add to the anxiety, our son’s cell phone, which he had given to us for the trip, got inadvertently locked and we didn’t know the password to open it again. So there we were – on increasingly dark and narrow, winding, remote German roads (we had left any semblance of a highway long before), with no phone, unsure of our fuel status, uncertain if we were even headed in the right direction. We were truly out there – on an adventure – on our own.

Well, we did make it back to our son’s, finally, in one piece, with enough fuel, very tired and very grateful for the safe return. It really was an adventure. A spectacularly beautiful one. A spectacularly stressful one. One we won’t soon forget.

We have both heard often from others that, on this journey through life, sometimes the “map changes and things seem out of our control” as we are taken un-expectantly off-course, I thought of our Black Forest detour two years ago. This journey – with cancer, with divorce, with loss, with betrayal, with fear, with pain, with brokenness – and all the other challenges we each deal with, is a change in the map, taking us off-course, seemingly removing so much of our control, creating great uncertainty as to where we are going. We never know exactly where we really are, where we are actually headed. We hope that we will arrive back home in one piece, safe and sound and in good time. But sometimes the way is awfully steep, genuinely scary and is never in a straight and easily-defined line. Often the light leaves us along the way and we travel in the dark. Many times we feel as if we really will plunge off the side and never get back on course again. Often we can feel as if we are out there, all alone, with no way to communicate with anyone who can understand. We waver. We doubt. We wonder if we will make it.

Just as Kathy and my mother and I eventually made it back safely to our son’s, we have the same hope of a similar homecoming for you too. It is our hope, our prayer, for all of you that your journey, no matter how winding and precarious and steep – will ultimately bring you back home – to health, to well-being, to peace.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash