Going the Wrong Way to Get Right

Yesterday morning I walked into a fog.

---

We are having a spring winter relationship here in TN.
Last week it was winter.
Yesterday spring entered cloaked in a thick fog.
I left for work about 5 AM.
I felt very safe in the quiet morning.
The fog and the lack of traffic was insulating.
It helped that the temperature was 30 degrees higher than last week.
I was smiling as my bug and I headed off to Nashville.
I have been making this drive for over 5 years.
I would say that I could drive it in my sleep.
Yet not so easily in a thick fog.
Within 10 minutes from home I found myself going the the wrong way onto 840.
No...I did not do a Nicole Richie and head up a down ramp.
I went east when I would have always gone west.
My first reaction was female.
Heart racing followed by self recrimination.
After a few seconds, survival techniques kicked in.
Slow down, remember the answer on your driver's test from 31 years ago..
Things appear to be moving at 1/2 the actual speed in a fog.
Fog thickens...
Breathe...
Then a sign...
It gives the miles to a city east of Nashville...
Ummmm..."I bet it is safer to go this way and connect back over rather than getting off on a country road and turning around"....
"Ummm..."I think I may actually only be off by 5 minutes getting to work because the traffic is less."
"Ummmm..."This might be fun. I might actually like going this way sometimes"
Within a few minutes I went from scared, frustrated to excited and creative.
A part of me was paying attention to the road, and a part of me was writing this blog.
I began to think about how much our attitudes play into survival.
It is so flip to say attitude is everything.
God is everything. We are just here trying to survive in a world that can be very tough.
Our attention to detail, our actions when we think no one is watching determine our course.
Sometimes we are determined to go the wrong way. We only seem to learn from our mistakes.
Sometimes we find ourselves too tired, we become careless, we underestimate what one wrong turn can do to our lives.
And yet..we are both stubborn and resilient as humans.
We can learn from our mistakes and we can bounce back.
Here is the most amazing part of this story..
Shortly before I was to get off the highway the fog lifted..
You could see the start of the sunrise...
Because the fog was lifting I was paying more attention to the world around me.
I passed under a bridge just then..
The name on the sign for the road the bridge connected was
New Hope Road.
It has been a long year for my family.
Many tests, many trials.
The night before this drive I had told my husband that no matter what, I would not want to be a person without hope.
I am thankful I went the wrong way yesterday.