The Gospel According to James Taylor (The Drive Home to Michigan)

We spent the night in Pioneer, Tennessee and drove the rest of the way home today. All day long I felt surges of emotion rising and falling, as the full impact of our change of plans began to take hold. I'm quite sure that Cindy and Monika were experiencing the same thing.

After lunch, Monika offered to drive and Cindy was sitting in the passenger seat. The two of them were going to listen to a book on tape, so I retreated to the back and appreciated the privacy to brood for a little while, listening to music on my headphones and staring out the window where only the glass could observe my tears. I cried and prayed silently, kind of surprised at myself for becoming so emotional over a simple change of plans. I mean, don't I deal with changes of plans all the time? Does any day in my life go exactly as I anticipate?

But God is good, and he listened to me patiently as I let some tears flow. And then he allowed me to take some comfort in the next two songs on my iPod's random mix:

Blessed be your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's all as it should be
Blessed be your name...

Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be your name...

He gives and takes away...
My heart will choose to say
Blessed be your name

I know that our little ordeal can hardly be counted as "suffering" but the concept of the words was clear: God is good, all of the time, whether things are easy or hard, whether things go the way I want or whether they go a completely different direction. My heart can (and will) choose to be okay with the cards I'm dealt, because I know and trust the one who dealt them. Today and every day. Because ultimately, as difficult as it is to say it, I know that I'm not the boss of me. It was a powerful little epiphany and it brought solace.

So did the next song. I know this is a little unconventional, but I heard God's comfort in a James Taylor song. Now don't get too freaked out on me—as much as I love JT, I know he probably didn't realize that the true purpose of his song was to be the voice of God comforting a dejected backpacker. But if God can use a talking donkey to speak to Balaam, I'm quite sure he can use a singing hippie to speak to me:

...I'm not the kind to use a pencil or rule
I'm handy with love and I'm no fool
I fix broken hearts; I know that I truly can
If your broken heart should need repair
Oh darlin' I'm the man to see
I whisper sweet things; you tell all your friends
They'll come runnin' to me
Here is the main thing that I want to say
I'm busy twenty-four hours a day
Fixing broken hearts; I know that I truly can
Come, come, come, yeah, yeah, yeah...
Yeah baby, I'm your handyman...

Okay, take a moment to stop laughing so that I can point out a couple things. He is busy 24 hours a day (God, that is—not James Taylor), making himself available to me, and if I come running, he will fix whatever brokenness I've got to offer. So I'm offerin' it, here and now. (And isn't it cool to imagine God calling you darlin'? Think about it.)