Molly's Musings

I’m from Staten Island originally,  the little forgotten borough of New York (until someone wants to make fun of it).  There, I could take trains or buses or cabs, or as was the case most of the time, rely on foot power to get me wherever I needed/wanted to go.  My late husband drove, but I did not;  and it really didn’t bother me much because traffic on the Island, especially where we lived, was bumper to bumper most of the time.  Plus, people drove like maniacs when it wasn’t.  So I wasn’t all that interested in getting my license.

Until, that is, we decided to move to Virginia in early 1993.  Husband came down here first, to secure a job and a place to live;  while I stayed back North to pack up and have my dad teach me to drive. Because where we were going did not have public transportation, I now had to take a crash course (no pun intended), otherwise how would I find a job or go shopping or any of the other places I needed to go?

Six months here without my license eventually drove me to my knees and repentance and salvation (although to be fair, my not having a license was not the cause of that, the isolation and separation from my family had more of a hand in it).   I started attending a church and met people in the neighborhood who also went and would take me with them.

Eventually though, I left that church and started attending another one, and while it was true that I had another ride whenever I wanted one (Thank you Elizabeth);  it was also true that I felt the call for independence.

So finally around the  two year anniversary of our move, I got down to business with learning to drive.  I was tired of having to depend on others to bring me to the store or church or the doctor or whatever.  Plus, a new addition had joined the family in the form of my nephew and I had offered to babysit him.  His family only lived a few miles down the road from us, but still it required me to operate a vehicle to get to them.

My original vision was to learn to drive and get my license primarily to get myself to church;  go to the nearby town to shop and to get to my nephews house in order to sit for him.  One Saturday, as my husband (who from now on I will refer to as Bob) and I drove to a nearby bigger town about 20 miles away from our house, I thought to myself, “If I’m going to learn to drive, I want to be able to drive in this town too,”   Reciting one of my favorite verses, I vowed that, “I can learn to drive anywhere through Christ Who strengthens me.”

As it turned out, not only did I learn to drive in that bigger town;  I have learned to drive and have driven in many other towns, most bigger than that one.  I have even driven to Staten Island twice by myself!  The job I have requires me to put a lot of mileage in over the course of even a day.   There is no telling how many miles I have logged in the almost 7 years that I’ve worked in my present industry.

All this from someone who did not get her license until she was 31 years old!  And as I thought about this, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how God worked all this out.  If He had told me way back at the beginning of my driving lessons that this would all occur, no doubt I would have turned tail and ran from the fear of it.   And if I had “settled” for what my original vision was, I would have missed out on so many interesting experiences and I wouldn’t have seen the gorgeous scenery that my state has to offer.

My Facebook status today was:  How many times are we satisfied to settle for so much less than what God plans to give us? I want all the good stuff God has for me!

And maybe this writing thing is supposed to be more than only offering comforting words to the hurting in cards and letters;  and certainly God meant for it to be for more than just updating my status.  So I will not have a “vision” for my talent;  I will let God decide what to do with it, how far it will go and for how long.