Life lesson #672

By Margaret, The Rope Editor

In the spirit of reminiscing, I have another story from the road for you.

While traveling the country in my previous job (see below for a full description) I had the opportunity to go to Maine. I was pretty excited about this because I couldn’t think of another time when I would have this chance.

My excitement was magnified by 398,465,164 when I started seeing caution signs for Moose crossings. Now before you start thinking that I am easily excited, let me explain. These were no ordinary caution2013-11-04 14.34.21 signs. The little diamond-shaped yellow signs apparently were  not sufficient for Mainers. No, no, they had to make these suckers twice the size of normal caution signs with flashing lights powered by solar panels. And almost every sign had an additional note of “next 17 miles” or “next 32 miles” beneath the extra-large diamond sign haloed by the glow of the flashing lights. These extra-cautionary signs were in addition to the normal caution signs that had just the moose outline on them.

Naturally all of these signs led me to believe that I’d be seeing moose by the hundreds. In my mind I would see so many that I would quickly learn their dialect, link my mind with their leader and have an escort of moose-protectors for the remainder of my earthly existence. If you had seen the signs (literally), you would’ve been thinking the same thing.

After one full week of driving all over Maine — from the southernmost border nearly to Canada — guess how many wild moose I saw. Exactly. I saw zero. Thanks for the buildup of false hope, Maine. Thanks.

Just writing this out upsets me all over again. Is this irrational? Maybe. But ya know what else is irrational? That’s right — having ten-foot, solar-powered caution signs for something that isn’t guaranteed to nuzzle your vehicle. My indignation is just as fresh at 3:03 today as it was a year ago.

Life lesson #672: Maine stinks.

Just kidding! The real life lesson is this:

The road signs in your life may seem glaringly obvious in the direction they’re pointing. But because we’re led by a God who we can’t possibly predict (and I mean that in the most awe-inspiring way), we’re going to get disappointed when the signs don’t mean what we thought they did. That doesn’t mean we give up on Him or pull the car over. It just means that we’re going to get something we never could have expected further down the road.

Do you know how I can say that with 100% certainty? I saw not one, not two, but four moose just three months later. All in one day. Life lessons from a moose hunt. I love how God works.

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For ten months Margaret worked as a technical presenter with Camfel Productions, a Christian non-profit production company based out of Los Angeles. Basically, she and a partner cruised around the U.S. in a sketchy white van, living out of “economic” hotels, eating out every meal and getting paid less than minimum wage to tell students from kindergarten to 12th grade how to build their character.

Maggie Evans is a regular contributor to The Scroll. She also is special assistant to the editor for The Alabama Baptist/TAB Media. Maggie and her husband, Sam, are members of Iron City Church, Birmingham.

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