One may have a destination in mind, but you’re not there yet. A slight difference in meaning counts. Meander around a mall before lunch checking what may turn up interesting. Wandering can have the connotation you really have no idea, yet if you take this turn something may feel familiar. When you feel lost then constraints of time, or daylight fading, or possible danger start the rise of a heart rate and the onset of panic and the unadult-like urge to call, “Mommy, where are you?” This season of ending February and moving to March creates a little of each for me. Pipes wrapped may need to stay that way through I really don’t expect another freeze. Papers for house taxes and the larger tax return get mixed with the wrong stack. I have an urge to order seeds for summer yet the right catalogue and page seem elusive and is now the right time? What gives the confirmation I am on the best path to move on with this year.
Some days I want to throw caution to the wind and “follow the yellow brick road.” Spring is usually like this and all will be well. However, it is nice to be next to that map with a red dot labeled You Are Here and the surroundings do look familiar. One big arrow gives encouragement unless it points up. Really, is fly away the solution? I’ve been in puzzled groups at a crossroads to have the loudest and bravest proclaim, “My gut says to go this way,” and march off sure that the rest of us will follow. The possibility of advice you can trust may be the solution unless it ends with the phrase, “You can’t miss it.” The most comforting journey is made like first graders leaving their classroom to go to the library. They travel in pairs and have a hand to hold.
It always amazes me that in this technological age, a source of rescuing may often include words like shepherd, rod, and staff for a generation that knows sheep only in a petting zoo. We do meander through parts of our lives, wander in a few wildernesses, and look around to realize we are lost. Then we don’t need a guardian angel as much as a caring, watchful shepherd who pulls us back from the edge of a crevice or fights off the lions of confusion that wait to attack. So February is short and March will blow strong winds toward Easter where we will hear those words again that guide our way.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—
John 10:14
Let Me Tell Ya 