GUY STUFF

There are always going to be bumps in the road. It doesn’t matter if you live on a gravel road, an asphalt road out in the country, or a concrete road in the middle of an upper class cul-de-sac, there are going to be bumps in the road. It’s just a part of life.

I believe it is not so much the road that we are driving on, and the various bumps and potholes along the way, but rather, how we respond to those bumps.

Just about everyone knows the country music song made famous by Carrie Underwood, but it is really much more than just a song, it is more like a mantra or an anthem that all of us should take to heart. Letting Jesus take the wheel is the absolutely best way to navigate all of the bumps and potholes we will experience as we motor along in this thing called life. But, I will tell ya, letting go of the wheel and letting Him drive is not always an easy thing to do. In fact, most of us have a hard time letting go of the control.

I know I did.

A couple of years ago, my world was shattered by the loss of my wife. The weeks and months that followed were a living crash course of me trying to navigate that road of loss, all by myself. I ignored all of the help tossed my way, and determined that it was a road that I could drive alone. What resulted was a couple of years where there were some crashes along the way. The potholes became caverns and the bumps were mountains.

It wasn’t until I let go of the wheel and let Him do the driving that things got a little smoother. The catalyst for the change of heart was a beautiful little girl, my granddaughter. Her older brother had been a huge help to me along the way, but it was the birth of his little sister that woke me up. The change was not something tangible, it was just a feeling that there was now this little life in the world that needed me, and she needed a Grandy that was present, focused…and sane. It is hard to explain, but let me try please.

I think that God, in His infinite wisdom, puts people in our lives that make us want to be better people ourselves. I believe that there is something inside each one of us that wants to be what those around us need us to be, and even in the very pits of our deepest despair, there is that voice, that urging, to be what we were put here to be.

I ain’t gonna lie to you, it isn’t always the easiest thing to hear, or to do, because we all also have that little devil sitting on our shoulder that wants us to be the opposite, and sadly, too many times we listen to him.

But the road of life is so much more easily driven, if we listen to the voice that calls us to be more like Him, and we let Him do the driving.

I was recently asked to drive down a new road, to leave the path that I had grown so accustomed to traveling, and venture down a new path, a path full of new curves, new bumps, and new potholes. But, it is a path that I am so excited to travel. As the new publisher of the Mt. Pleasant Tribune, the Pittsburg Gazette, and the Steel Country Bee, there will be new adventures. I am excited about the journey.

For those of you who live on the roads of my new path, I ask you to simply jump on board. We are going to go for a ride to places not seen before, with new stories to tell, new things to see, and it will hopefully be fun for all of us.

For those who live on those old roads once traveled, I’m not leaving them. They will always be a part of me.