Heart Maps

Recently I was driving to meet a friend with another friend in the car. Everything was going as normal until my friend in the passenger seat asked, “Wait, why are you going this way?” To which, I responded, “What do you mean?” My friend in the passenger seat redirected me to what was apparently a more normal route to the coffee shop we were going to, a route in which I honestly had never used. And just like that I realized, I had never learned the ‘normal route’ using main roads.I had learned to get to that coffee shop based on a landmark, a landmark from my past. I hadn’t realized it, but I had been navigating my way to several places orienting myself around this one place. I knew how to get to the grocery store, from that point. To the coffee shops, from that point. To my friend’s house, from that point. I had never considered that when the relevance of that place ended, it was no longer the best route.And then I just sat. How long have I been orienting my present around past landmarks? How long have I been taking the same way home, driving past pain points because it’s the only way I learned.This might sound ridiculous to you, because unlike me you have a great sense of direction and can quickly find new ways to get from point A to point B…but even if you aren’t doing this in real life, we all do a little bit of it in our hearts. Even when we know we need to leave a life landmark in the past, we always seem to find a way to drive back by. Check in, see if anything has changed…see if it still feels like it did a few years ago.But I recently got smacked with a Bible Study one of my friends wrote. In session three she came around John and taking up your cross daily. I had never realized that implied moving forward. I had never realized Jesus is rallying beside us, cheering us on to keep taking steps, to not slow down. It's like He's saying, "You may have some things to carry, but I’ll help, we can’t just stop here honey." I also certainly never realized the cross I was denying to pick up, the cross that was keeping me from moving forward was my simple refusal to do so.Jesus wants to rewrite my heart maps, he doesn't want me driving down those old roads anymore.So this is the ode to learn a new way. It’s okay that those places once meant something to you, and it’s okay that that isn’t how it is anymore. They can hold those memories just fine without you checking in.