I was driving home when out of nowhere, the sun disappeared and it started to rain. It was rush hour and I was still half an hour away from home. I had a bad feeling that things would get ugly.
What happened next shook me to the core.
I had already driven up the on-ramp and was stuck in the middle lane of a major highway with no exit in sight when the skies opened up and it rained harder than I had seen it rain in a long time.
I panicked.
I thought about trying to slowly change lanes and maybe pull over on the shoulder and turn my hazards on to wait the storm out but I knew that would be dangerous. I couldn’t see the shoulder.
To the left and to the right of me was a blur. I knew there were other cars there but I couldn’t see them anymore. The rain was coming down so hard that they became invisible to me.
All I could see was ten feet of the road in front of me. I knew I was in a lane. I knew I was a safe distance from the car in front of me, I could see the brake lights up ahead. But that’s all I knew.
I couldn’t see the road all the way home. But I never could, anyway. All I needed to see was the ten feet in front of me. And then the ten feet after that. Eventually, I would make it home safely.
That’s when I realized that I would be okay.
I think about that drive home whenever I find myself, or the people I care about, in a situation that seems hopeless. Too many give up when things get tough instead of fighting for what they want.
Most will never know how close they were to a breakthrough if they had just fought a little harder.
It’s hard to see the whole plan. It’s impossible for us to know how everything is going to turn out. We can’t control things. We can’t control the future. But we can navigate what we see, right now.
Clarity comes with action. When we take a step in faith, the next door will appear. If we wait for everything to be perfect, we’ll never start. And if we quit when things get tough, we’ll never finish.
When we find ourselves driving through the storms of life, with no way to pull over, say a little prayer and keep on driving. Focus on the ten feet in front of you until you make it to the other side.