Journey of a Lifetime-Part 7

My journey of A lifetime has become my journey of MY lifetime. I have been literally going back through my life and deconstructing the God I grew up with and rebuilding my beliefs with the God I have come to know. I am currently in my cousin’s house in Hot Springs Village. It’s on the lake and very peaceful. More family is coming in today, and it’s the perfect end to my journey.

After leaving Monterey, I spent some time outside of LA with a very dear friend and her family, I made my way to the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest, saw a giant meteor crater in Winslow, AZ, spent a couple days in Santa Fe, and then made an unplanned stop in Fort Smith, AR where I spent my grade school and preteen years. There I met up with two of my closest friends growing up, I went by my old house and school, and I went to my Nana’s house where my mom grew up and where much of my childhood was spent.

I didn’t intend for this journey to be about visiting the past, but as I drove away from California the past was constantly in my mind. I was born in Cali, and though I was still a baby when we moved away, I still feel a draw to it. As a kid, we had driven back there a few times to see my grandparents and the route I was taking from Cali to Arkansas was vaguely familiar. That familiarity brought a longing to my heart and I wanted to remember a time when life was easy and I didn’t question my beliefs or myself. Most all of my stops along that way were to places I had been before, it’s almost like God knew I needed to visit the past to heal my future.

At the Grand Canyon, I smiled about how excited I had been about the squirrel that had sat on my foot and looked up at me decades ago as we stood at the edge of the canyon. At the Petrified Forest, I remembered being at the gift shop and picking out the perfect piece of petrified wood to take home and realized that I didn’t know where it was now. In Santa Fe, I recalled being a young mom and a wife there for a marriage conference with my husband, excited about my family and the beautiful future we were going to have. Then in Fort Smith, I talked to my friends about the fun we had walking to the corner store (which we were not allowed to do!), nights spent at each other’s homes, our parents, and growing up in church during a time that fear was the motivating factor for doing the right thing. The past became a very large part of my journey towards home.

It’s not quite done yet. I still have time with my cousins and aunts. I still have time to work through who God is to me now. I still have a couple more days before life once again tries to steal the contentment I have found. But I do know that God’s hand has been on this entire trip. There’s just been too much peace and healing to deny that.