Last night I was trying to remember ten things in my life that impacted me the most. I had a really hard time trying to think of even one thing. In my frustration, I wondered why I forget all the things I go through. Its as if sometimes I wonder if I have ever been through anything; if I have ever truly struggled, or been broken. As I become a counselor, and learn how to help broken people, I become more envious of the people coming into counseling, broken and in dire need of help. It’s a weird feeling really, because part of me knows that I have been through suffering, and am still suffering. On the other hand, I don’t want to go through any more trials than I have already been through. As I thought about it for a while, I did eventually begin to remember all the color from my life: almost dying in a skiing accident, the day when I stared at a painting for four hours, the afternoon when I understood God’s unconditional grace, the suicide note that got slipped under my door as an RA, getting sick after having a cigar and a good conversation with my dad, or even the night that God redeemed my relationship with Kate. I guess I wonder why I forget to live in light of these stories. Why do I forget as I live life with people not to go back to their stories? Why do I forget the Gospel daily? Maybe the reasons why I forget the stories are because I am supposed to forget them. Maybe I am supposed to fall down, skin my knees, and even bleed a little. My story is not completely redeemed, but one day it will be. For now, I am left with a sense of longing for redemption, longing for beauty, longing to live in light of these stories, and forced to continue to write and rewrite new stories.

One of the stories that I remember began on a Friday afternoon after a night of frustration and lack of peace. Kate and I had talked for the first time since we had broken up and my heart for her was strong and yet at the same time completely helpless, because I couldn’t do anything to make her love me. I got in the car that day after leaving the coffee shop off of Broad Street in downtown Rome. Jonah, an adventurous friend of mine, had told me he had taken the byway a few days before and that it was the end-all cure for a heart of unrest. As my tires hit the road I knew that it was where I was suppose to be…so I drove and finally reached the blue byway signs that Jonah had told me to follow through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As I reached the byway, I slowed the car to a smooth 45, set my cruise control and completely soaked in the miles of farmland, mountains, and an open road that supposedly led me back to where I started after a two-hour drive. Previously while I was at the coffee shop, I had written the word “Love” on my wrist with a black Sharpie to remind me of a passage I had just read from Paul’s letter to the Romans. I wanted to set my mind on what I was driving for: I was trying to find peace from God and to be comforted by His love show. It seemed like God had sovereignly placed me on the road as each transition between songs also marked the transition of the wind’s direction. I was free. Free from frustration, life, and confusion. Free to pull off my blue-signed marked path at any time. And I did. About an hour in to the drive I pulled off the road onto some gravel to what seemed to wind around the mountain for miles. I had only been on the gravel road a minute to drive to the top, as a red pick up truck was just getting its start on the one lane trail behind me. I reached the top and saw something I had scene a couple of years back with my friend Jeff. I don’t know how we ended up there, but it was at night and wasn’t as glorious as it was this time. The gravel road had led me for twenty minutes to a beautiful overlook of the drive that I had just taken to get there. The overlook opened up a gap between the hills and created a gorgeous valley with the sun shinning brightly and silently through the calmed wind. A few minutes later, the gravel under the tires of the red pick up casually broke the silence. I soaked the scenery in, that couldn’t really be caught with a camera if I had tried. I looked down at my wrist at my Sharpie tattoo, as man and woman in their late fifties stepped out of their truck. I smiled as the man without a shirt and beer belly greeted me and commented on the beautiful film that we were all watching unfold between the hills. Just then, the same air blew into our three sets of lungs.

To make conversation, I smiled back at them both, and took my glasses off. I noticed their torn clothing and the man’s Jeff Gordon hat covering his greasy hair and asked them where they had driven from to get to the overlook. They both turned and looked at each other and slightly laughed under their breath. As the man, Christian, pulled out an old digital camera to take a picture of the beauty, he told me that he and the woman, Sherrie has been living in the Pocket for the past few months. I remembered now that my friend Jeff and I had camped in the Pocket, a free camp ground on the side of a riverbed 50 minutes or so from campus. At this point I realized that living for three months in the Pocket didn’t mean that they were on an over night camping trip, but were homeless. Interested, I asked how had it been? Homelessness that is. Sherrie smiled and said that she and Christian has lost their jobs a while back and had been slowly running out of money when they found a place to park their camper and live for while. Sherrie and Christian both said they liked it and had felt very freed from the burdens that they has accumulated over the years. Now their only bill was the red pick up’s gas tank and the hot dogs for the campfire. I was in awe, kind of jealous actually, but more so interested in what their life was like. Christian was about to leave and walk back toward the truck when I realized why I was at the overlook: to experience freedom. I had stopped before going to the coffee shop and cashed a paycheck and felt God’s nudge pushing me to give some of the money that I would have just spent going out to eat. I asked Sherrie how she paid for gas. With her beautiful worn face she told me that Christian got work every now and then on construction sites, ten dollars here, twenty dollars there… “Can I give you some cash for your tank?” I asked. Christian stopped walking on the gravel toward the truck and in confusion asked why I would want to give them money for gas. I looked at them both as the wind blew the dust from the gravel across my bare feet. I smiled and looked down at my wrist. I told them that I thought I was supposed to be there to meet them both and that they had a lot more faith than I did. As I began to tell them about becoming a believer a few years back, Christian stopped me from sharing the Gospel I believed in and began to share it with me instead. Sherrie told me that she had just become a Christian a few weeks before, when she had felt God tugging on her heart to surrender to Him. When telling me their story, they both preached to me the freedom and love of God. Christian felt like God had been sovereign over his hardships and put him in his homelessness to impact and love people that most people didn’t love. They both could sense something or someone was heavy on my heart and asked if I wanted someone to talk to. Something was heavy and someone was on my heart. I thanked them and said that I was encouraged by what they said, but needed to get back on the road. They invited me down for some hot dogs, but I opted not to delay the ride back. As my tires hit the one lane gravel road going back down the hill, my eyes started to water and I realized that God was sovereign over my trip. I felt freedom and love. It was therapy and the therapy continued as the songs continued and the air outside hit my fingers. Love covers a multitude of sin and its ironic when you think you are about to share the Gospel with a homeless couple, when instead they share it with you. Christian and Sherrie were tools of the Lord’s freedom and love for His Children. I pulled back onto the main road and as I followed the blue signs back home it was like a freight train hit my heart. I didn’t know what it was, but God slowly began to take the thorn out of my flesh and give me confidence in His work in Kate’s heart. There was freedom in the unknown, but more freedom in surrendering to the will of God.

The next day I took Kate with me on the byway and told her to let the byway show her freedom, as I had experienced it. When we exited on the gravel road that led to the overlook, I began to tell her the story of Christian and Sherrie. We sat and looked over the valley and mountains and then walked on a beaten path to a rock with the same view. We sat and talked there for hours. It was like falling in love all over again. And it really didn’t make sense to anyone else why I would take Kate up there, or better yet why she would even go with me in the first place. But there was color in the story, and though it seemed gray to others, it made complete sense in our heads. So we sat there and probably confused things more. But it was freeing and I thought that it could be the beginning of getting back together. The day was awesome, confusing, and free.

Looking back at the drive and where I am now in my relationship with Kate, I think that day was the beginning of God redeeming my relationship with her. I am not sure, but I hope it was. The truth though is that each story that I began to tell led to another story that wasn’t quite redeemed. The story of the drive led to the day after, and the day after led to the day after that. It’s one story that reminded me of this story to begin with. This story wasn’t about God introducing me to Christian and Sherrie, but rather it was an introduction to a preface of another story that God was waiting to redeem. See, this story preceded four months more of unrest of mine and Kate’s relationship. That is how stories work; they are rabbit trails trying to get back to a climax, or redemption, or an overlook of freedom.

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