Just out of sight...

I feel that I was very fortunate growing up. My Mom and Dad provided a pretty good life for my brother and me. I don’t think it was the life they anticipated as they began to date, as they courted, and began their marriage. But then again no one can anticipate what the future truly holds. My parents separated and divorced before I learned how to tie my shoes in First Grade. During their courting and falling in love with each other, I bet it never occurred to them that it could all end with such pain, with such heart ache, with such hate. I am sure there are things my parents wish they had known about each other before they said “I do” in front of friends and family. I am also sure there were pleasant surprises along the way that they never would have known about each other until they made a commitment to each other and chose to live their lives together.

I have been told often that Hindsight is 20/20. If we only knew what was just ahead of us, just out of sight, would we run bravely into the future or would we tread carefully, slowly into that future? My family has a ranch just outside of my hometown. There is a creek that runs through a portion of our land. Well, to say it runs is a bit of an overstatement. We have a creek bed running through a portion of our land. From up above, along the canyon wall (I’m not really sure you could call it a canyon) it looks like an old dried up creek bed, but every once in a while you might spot a wet spot in the shade or a pool of “standing” water in a bend. If you move the short distance from the top of the canyon into the creek bed you might find something a little different, especially if you look back on where you have been. As you walk through the creek bed you leave footprints. After a few minutes those footprints fill with the water that lies just under the surface of the creek bed. The water is there, it’s just out of sight. The water provides for the health and growth of the area. It’s just not easily seen.

At my Aunt and Uncle’s house they had an open sewer area out behind their house. The area was hard to see and the “water” was just out of sight. Trust me one of the last things you wanted to do was to look back and realize what you had just stepped through.

There is stuff in our lives and in the lives of other people that is there, it’s just out of sight. It would be very helpful if we knew it was there, but they are no warning signs. There may be great things we just can’t quite see until we look back, or they may be things we want to be a little more cautious with, or things that would be a deal breaker and we need to run from, but they are just out of sight until we look back.

My wish would be that no one would have to go through the pains of love gone wrong. But that’s not real life. Real life is hard and so much of what goes on we don’t really see until we look back. But we can’t stay looking back or we will never make any progress. We have to step forward into the unknown. Sometimes good things will pop up, at other times not so good things will come out. We will never know if we don’t live.