I left Oxford on a Monday morning after a wonderful 4 days with friends and selling lots of art! I remember the good old days when my family traveled with maps, paper ones! And it took planning and they always seemed to have an overall sense of where they were headed. Then I remember my early 20's when we had MapQuest and we would print out the directions before we left the house, and if I read them through I would have a general sense of what major roads to take...but this day I was so tired and had to make it to Witchita that evening (we had already booked a hotel) so I had 10+ hours to drive and I didn't look ahead but just punched in the hotel address on Google Maps and took off down the road with Siri as my only guide..I didn't realize that the state of Missouri was in a state of emergency with nearly every major road blocked or underwater!
I was nervous and fearful the entire day because google maps couldn't keep up and I drove back country roads with little direction only orange Detour signs every 10 miles or so... I finally arrived to a road that seemed to lead straight to Witchia in 300ish miles, and after a few minutes there was the orange and white striped sign "road underwater"! I had kept my anxiety a secret from my kids but at this point I pulled over in a cemetery parking lot and exasperated and worn out I shouted to God -"where do you want me to go?" My stephen said mama i think we should make it to Witchia - but i said "stephen i dont know how to get there and i saw a sign for I49 that led North to Kansas City so maybe the interstate would be clear but it would take longer and we would have to find another hotel." Right then a man walked up to my window (i had noticed a white car pull off behind me) - i timidly rolled down my window -a little- and he asked me "Are you involved with Young Life?" A little shaken and surprised I noticed him wearing a YL hat and I remembered i had a YL sticker on the driver side of my car, so i rolled it down a little more and his wife (who is on staff with YL) came to the car with a MODOT app on her phone and she showed me how to get to Witchita because they happened to be from there! Wow! So I asked if I could follow them, and they led me all the way to my hotel!
As I followed them the next 300 miles I got to think on how the timing worked out -earlier I stopped a few times that I didn't want to but my babies needed food or the restroom- and I was aggravated and probably not kind to them because it wasn't in my "plan" to stop that many times...but God had it in His good plan for me to meet those kind people at the precise moment I most needed them and they led me to safety. I was always safe and never alone but I felt alone and fearful until the white prius with Kristin and her kind husband reached out to help me.