Keeping faith in the everyday (another of my columns)
Although my mother might say it isn’t often enough, I travel occasionally from Greensburg back to Anderson to visit my parents.
It’s a drive which is familiar to me, State Road 3 North to 40 East to State Road 109 North and into my hometown. Last spring and summer, it was a weekly adventure. Each Wednesday, I traveled north to meet up with my mom and plan my wedding to Joshua.
We went to florists, dress shops and called caterers. We looked at decorations and invitations and made a seemingly endless of list of things yet to be done.
Regardless of how many times I make the trip, there are things that pop out to surprise me.
On some level, I’m still shocked at the development along I-69. The town has spread south in sometimes surprising way. While the interstate started the work of development, it is a long process. At first, it was Applewood Center, the Payless grocery store and Karma music store in a strip mall with a nine-screen movie theater.
That was the south edge of town. It was where we went to play mini golf after I got my driver license, where Target was, where we headed for something to do.
Now, the space between the downtown and the highway is beginning to fill. There was once a gap of 22 “blocks” between 10th Street and 32nd Street, broken only by factories.
The factories have closed, the space has begun to fill and the theater that defined my middle and high school years has been closed. It was replaced by a pair of theaters, one at the historic Mounds Mall and the other at a new mall at what was once Deer Creek Music Center and is now Verizon Wireless Music Center.
Things are always changing, I guess. At only 24 years old, I sometimes already feel old, nostalgic for the town I knew as a child, the world I knew.
And I know I have to live on faith. As I drive, I’m reminded that I must keep faith in my fellow man. I must trust that as the car coming toward me enters the turn, the driver will maintain their lane. I have to live on trust that the wheels on my car will follow my command and the brakes will work. I need to believe that things will continue to be ok, that I will continue to be safe.
While there are things I can do to improve my odds, there is always a chance that tonight’s sunset will be my last, just as there is a chance I will live forever. The better bet sits somewhere in the middle.
Things won’t always go the best they can, but probably won’t end up in the worst case scenario. I have to keep my faith and hope alive that I will be ok somewhere between, that my expectations will likely never be met, that there will always be surprises, but I will be ok.
Anyone with animals has faith that they will continue to behave as expected, but it doesn’t always work out that way. The bear trainer in California and his family learned that hard lesson just last week, and my heart goes out to them.
We all live on faith that water will come out of our faucets, that our toilets will flush, that our cars will start on the way to work. We keep our hopes close to our hearts and somehow it works out.
We face hard years and easy ones. We have days that challenge our idea of how much one person can take, but we keep faith somehow that it will be better. When someone asks me hard questions about the future and how I know things will work out, my only answer is faith.
I have to keep believing that good will come out on top in the end.
It’s a drive which is familiar to me, State Road 3 North to 40 East to State Road 109 North and into my hometown. Last spring and summer, it was a weekly adventure. Each Wednesday, I traveled north to meet up with my mom and plan my wedding to Joshua.
We went to florists, dress shops and called caterers. We looked at decorations and invitations and made a seemingly endless of list of things yet to be done.
Regardless of how many times I make the trip, there are things that pop out to surprise me.
On some level, I’m still shocked at the development along I-69. The town has spread south in sometimes surprising way. While the interstate started the work of development, it is a long process. At first, it was Applewood Center, the Payless grocery store and Karma music store in a strip mall with a nine-screen movie theater.
That was the south edge of town. It was where we went to play mini golf after I got my driver license, where Target was, where we headed for something to do.
Now, the space between the downtown and the highway is beginning to fill. There was once a gap of 22 “blocks” between 10th Street and 32nd Street, broken only by factories.
The factories have closed, the space has begun to fill and the theater that defined my middle and high school years has been closed. It was replaced by a pair of theaters, one at the historic Mounds Mall and the other at a new mall at what was once Deer Creek Music Center and is now Verizon Wireless Music Center.
Things are always changing, I guess. At only 24 years old, I sometimes already feel old, nostalgic for the town I knew as a child, the world I knew.
And I know I have to live on faith. As I drive, I’m reminded that I must keep faith in my fellow man. I must trust that as the car coming toward me enters the turn, the driver will maintain their lane. I have to live on trust that the wheels on my car will follow my command and the brakes will work. I need to believe that things will continue to be ok, that I will continue to be safe.
While there are things I can do to improve my odds, there is always a chance that tonight’s sunset will be my last, just as there is a chance I will live forever. The better bet sits somewhere in the middle.
Things won’t always go the best they can, but probably won’t end up in the worst case scenario. I have to keep my faith and hope alive that I will be ok somewhere between, that my expectations will likely never be met, that there will always be surprises, but I will be ok.
Anyone with animals has faith that they will continue to behave as expected, but it doesn’t always work out that way. The bear trainer in California and his family learned that hard lesson just last week, and my heart goes out to them.
We all live on faith that water will come out of our faucets, that our toilets will flush, that our cars will start on the way to work. We keep our hopes close to our hearts and somehow it works out.
We face hard years and easy ones. We have days that challenge our idea of how much one person can take, but we keep faith somehow that it will be better. When someone asks me hard questions about the future and how I know things will work out, my only answer is faith.
I have to keep believing that good will come out on top in the end.