I got lost on the way to Church.

This morning I got lost on my way to church…yep it’s a Friday. Let me explain.

I don’t usually go to the gym in the mornings on Friday because well let’s face it sleeping in with my husband is WAY more fun! =) Sleeping and relaxing is what happens on my our Friday mornings, and as I thought about doing so this Friday without my husband I knew that I would be unable to really sleep in and probably get started on house chores too early and wear myself out; not to mention be all alone in doing so. Enter: Fun Run Group at my gym, yeah no sappy drama here I’m a big girl and put on my big girl britches to get there in time at 5:33 am to be exact I was early. ( I even walked over from our apartment aren’t you impressed? I wouldn’t be it was like .1 miles, but I digress)

I met up with the group of three of us, and we went over the running route.

Back story: I’m not from Grand Island Nebraska, I am a transplant and being such, I do not know the area very well especially the side of town where we currently are living (and where we ran today). I lived on the other side of town for three-ish years until moving here. I am familiar with a few routes and the walking trail that runs from my home to the church, but street names and different landmarks are totally lost on me…..to no ones fault but my own. So when the route was stated that we would take the ‘trail’ to the church weave are way around and make it back to fitness studio all in the matter of 3.2 miles I was delighted, not too far and so much fun to be running in the early morning on a Friday. Quite honestly as well I knew I wasn’t thaaaat slow and could at least keep the lead runner in sight.

Lesssss Go!

We took off and two of the women were on a cadence much quicker than mine, but one woman and I stayed pretty close together and within eye distance of the other two leading our little pack. I kept telling myself to keep my eyes up and make sure I could always see the two in the front and try my best to move my legs in time to stay at least within sight of them…which should not be hard to do in Nebraska of course ( no hills right?). =)

I was humming along keeping up, and took a turn to head down the walking trail towards the church I attend every week, a home away from home truly. My ever so watery eyes (thanks contacts in humid weather) soon started searching for the two that I was following up ahead on the trail only I was suddenly coming up empty. Where in the world did they go? Had I slowed that much? About the time these questions popped into my mind I also noticed the girl that was tight on my heels was not present either.

Something was array.

Problem solver Jayne fired up inside me I knew the solution! I weaved into the neighborhoods that I believed them to be weaving through (remember no hills, this was the only solution I could come up with, a home was separating my view of them) that surrounded the church, maybe their circle around the church was quite bigger than mine? As the ode of cow manure became stronger, I decided it was time to turn back towards the church with no sign of my comrades. I headed around the church hitting three miles on my fitbit and knew that I had taken a wrong turn from the group, this run would be much longer than the 3.2…..

I had taken my eyes off the leaders that were to take me on my run this morning, and it reminded me of life as well. I listened to instructions of what I ‘thought’ the route would be we were taking and then when in the midst of it all I got lost in my thoughts and mind only to find when I looked up I was not being led any longer and wandering on my own.

How many times I feel God has tried to get this in my head and how many times I have shuddered at the fact that I do this far to often in my life. I ‘hear’ what I feel to be directions from God and yet I don’t follow and ‘look’ to see where he is taking me. Instead I simply follow what I thought to be right…or rather what I had ‘heard’, but didn’t look up to see if it was God still taking me on the journey.

I clipped along past the church and thought about all these things, while also trying to run quicker due to the fact I would be later than the others by a fair amount and didn’t want them to worry. I ran past a line of trees….and bird after bird after bird sat in my way only to fly off at the last minute and wail out a call of distress. I’m assuming protecting their loved ones and letting others in on the fact that crazy lost woman was storming the trail and who knew what was next.

It’s a fickle thing God has allowed us to be present in life but also in nature. My eyes were opened I was present….and God spoke.

These birds were drawing my attention and I heard God shudder, almost audibly saying;”I gave them a cry of distress to help you notice them.” Funny God because this WHOLE MORNING has me noticing you.

But for real though, those birds every single one of them with their ground breaking screeches had me startled throughout that whole stretch of the run. I saw every one of them coming and yet each screech I jumped a slight bit (anybody else had this experience of mama birds?).

I thought God is interesting, he didn’t create in birds to have beautiful cry of distress or a nice little hum that is pleasant to the ear when they are worried and trying to alarm all the other little birdies. I wasn’t soothed into walking at the sound these birds were crying, no these cry were squawks, clicks, cries, screeches, and well you get the point. I thought about that concept of the cries we often see in human beings and how when we are in troubled times often we screech and cluck too. It’s usually not pretty.

How often in my life I have gotten all worked up about something, many times I cry out and make a big fuss. I often am guilty during these moments of NOT looking towards God and saying, “Hey I’m here I’m going to shut up now and be quite so I can ‘listen’ to you, and I’ll sit here until I open up my eyes and ‘look’ as well.”

That’s hard, it’s not easy to just be still and wait on God. Like today when I had missed my opportunity to look up and see where I was to go, I felt lost and wanted to cluck a little bit and let my frustration out, I continued on and made my journey today in my run. But I often wonder if in life it might be a good spot to sit down and state to God simply that I have ‘heard’ the instruction, but right now I am lost in the ‘sight’ he wanted me to see through those directions. I cluck and cluck and cluck so loudly I can’t hear him when he comes running straight towards me.

It truly is a sad experience that many and way to many of us go through on a daily basis, myself included. I may have gotten physically ‘lost’ today and separated from my running group; but I believe God has helped me ‘find’ a lot more than just simply the two runners leading my pack.

A lesson then for me to learn from this adventure of a morning is that God has a lot to ‘say’ to me but also a lot to ‘show’ me and I simply need to be a Woman of God and allow myself the opportunity to be present in not only the time of instruction from him but also the time of experience as well.

Have any of you ever gotten lost?

What do you think about ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ God’s instruction?