Remember when you graduated from high school and the world stretched out like an open road in front of your new-to-you, college-bound car? Remember that?

Somehow my car circled around and I’m staring at the same highway and when Brandi Carlile sings the chorus of “hard way home,” I belt it louder than is probably appropriate for my post-college age.

Now, Brandi and I disagree on a few things – some of them pretty major. But, I find a very steady solidarity in our choosing the “hard way home.” I’m stubborn. And sometimes my stubbornness gets me into sin, a lot of times I guess. I can look back at my tracks and, with Brandi, point to times I should have redirected my steps but pressed on for pride or fear or foolishness.

I don’t know how Brandi feels when she sings this song, but what I feel is gratitude. Oh, man! I’m such an obstinate and fickle girl. I don’t know why anyone would have patience with my antics, but the Lord is steady as an oak and faithful like the sun. Though the lost in me thinks faking my death would be an exciting escape (see the bridge), the found in me delights in knowing that I can never be hidden.

With my car facing that same, great highway, the “hard way home” isn’t a lonely trek when you are sitting in the passenger seat.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy