The Scenic Route

Life is a culmination of past and present emotions, marked by moments of joy, loss, and growth.

Childhood friendships fade as people move away, leaving behind memories of shared birthdays. When we reconnect years later, it often feels like meeting strangers linked only by the past. These early experiences teach us that people come and go. And while it’s easy to dwell on the sadness, we have the power to cherish the good times—the laughter, the simple joys of family moments, and the warmth in fleeting connections. Rather than building walls of bitterness, we can embrace these lessons with gratitude, allowing them to shape us with resilience and an appreciation for the beauty found in each season of life.

There is no better time than the present to have an epiphany about why we want to hold on tightly to those we hold dear. Why we have an unconscious desire to build a small but solid core of friends and family. Yes, even within family, there can be people who don’t align with our hearts, our spiritual beliefs, or our desires. We still love them, we pray for them, but the social interactions become very brief or extremely limited. When we find that core, our desire is to maintain it.

I can only speak to my own experiences, but I was exposed to loss at a very early age. This is not a negative reflection on my parents; they made sure we were taken care of—even if it meant they went hungry. No parent is perfect; I’m not. But we learn; we do what we believe is best for our kids. Parents are typically the only ones rooting for you to be better than them. The rest of the world will try to beat you down into submission and prevent you from growing into your peak potential.

In church, our foundation should be based on Jesus Christ and the Bible. Its main purpose is to form our foundational relationships and livelihood in Christ and with fellow believers. While we do our best to ensure we are living the life God intends for us, that does not exempt us from trials, temptations, or temporary pain. Trials are there to refine us and help strengthen us—to grow us. Temptations are situations we find ourselves in, most of the time by our own choices, but those temptations can increase our faith when we recognize them for what they are: temptation. When we are tempted, it is not God tempting us. God cannot sin, so why would He put you in a spot to potentially sin? What God will do, however, is be right there with you. And when you notice that something is tempting you to sin, He will guide you through the way out—if you are listening and obeying His guidance.

Pain is temporary. We can use it to continue reaching out to God, seeking His face. Even if we don’t fully understand the reason for our suffering, we are called to seek Him in every season. Though the sorrow may last for a night, joy comes in the morning.

I have had a ton of friends, acquaintances, and connections that have come and gone. Unfortunately, most have their breaking point, and you get so tired of losing connections that you start to become numb to it. Numbness happens after anger. When you are angry, emotions are high, thoughts are racing, judgment is clouded, and you start to pass blame on others. I was angry. I passed blame. I accused. I did this to someone very close to me, and it caused ripples in our relationship. It didn’t matter the connection, the experiences, or the good they had done. Once they said they were leaving, everything shut down, and the connection was severed. That was the moment numbness settled in.

High school experiences have a way of challenging even the best characteristics in someone. The settings we position ourselves in can have costly impacts. You are surrounded by peers and you hope to influence them, but instead, they influence you. I said earlier, we can be tempted, but God will provide a way out—if we just listen and take His guidance. When we lose a connection with someone, it can feel as if they are dead to us. We cut them off. But when you actually lose someone—a relative unexpectedly—the previous losses can be devastating and emotionally damaging, exasperating your emotions and making you want to lash out.

Through the years of high school, many rebellious events took place. No matter how hard you try to hide it, your parents—the ones who love you the most—are being crushed. No matter how far you run, they continue to pray for you. No matter your faults, they continue to love you. And it’s in those moments, when you look back, that you wish you could go back and tell yourself how ignorant you’ve been. You wish you could knock some sense into yourself. But would you have listened?

It’s during those rebellious times that parents have to ask the hard questions. There is only one thing that parents have the potential to take with them to heaven, and that is their kids. Those hard questions need to be asked:

Are you saved?

Do you even know Jesus?

Do you love Him?

Where is your salvation?

Who is your saving grace?

Are you on the path that leads to righteousness? Or are you on the path that “rocks”?

If your response was like mine—“I’m taking the scenic route”—then please take it from me: the scenery isn’t that great. It is not worth it.

Consider readying —Isaiah 46:1-13 NIV

If you have experienced loss in your life, family, or friendships, just know—you can and should continue to pray for them. If you have friends or family that are on the scenic route and think they are on “the path that rocks,” continue to pray for them. Even the hardest of hearts can be softened. Even the deadest of hearts can be revived through prayer and healing through the Holy Spirit.

As parents, we have a responsibility to raise our children to the best of our ability and as the Bible instructs us:

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.”

—Proverbs 22:6 NIV

But if I know what I’m instructed to do and don’t follow through—if my child never hears about the Bible, never goes to church, and never forms a relationship with Christ—then I have not followed through with raising them properly.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

—Matthew 18:6 NIV

Now more than ever, we, as a Spirit-filled, Christ-believing people, need to pray for the outpouring of God’s blessing, grace, mercy—and for the awakening of hardened hearts, the revival of dead hearts—and draw near to Jesus.