One of our favorite authors is Barbara Brown Taylor. She tells the story in her book, “Tales of Terror, Times of Wonder,” about vacationing on a barrier island where she watched one evening as a loggerhead turtle crawled slowly out of the water to lay and bury her eggs. Taylor assumed the old turtle would make her way back to the sea after laying her eggs, but the next day she encountered the same turtle lost in the dunes. It seems that by some navigational error, after laying her eggs, the old turtle had wandered on into the sand dunes, rather than back to the safety of the sea. By the time Taylor found her, the turtle was disoriented, dazed and desperate. She appeared utterly sunbaked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand.
Taylor said she poured a little water on the old turtle then hurriedly called a park ranger to come to the rescue. What surprised Taylor, however, was the form the ranger’s rescue took. The park ranger flipped the turtle on her back, wrapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to a trailer hitch on his jeep. Then he took off, yanking the turtle’s body forward so that her mouth filled with sand and her neck bent far back, apparently ready to snap. Finally, at the ocean’s edge, the ranger unhooked the chains and turned the old turtle right side up. Eventually the waves made her light enough to swim ever so slowly away, taking with her the nightmare memory of her time marooned in the dunes and her jarring ride back to the sea.
It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Might it be when we’ve wandered far off track in life that getting back on course can be as painful and difficult for us as it was for the turtle? It can hurt to try to crawl back to the space we should be occupying in life when we’ve drifted far off course and lost our way. It can hurt to face the distortions we’ve lived by. It can hurt to strip away a falseness we’ve adopted. It can hurt to admit we need some help in regaining a foothold on the right path. And even if we turn to God for help, sometimes the rescue operation can be wrenching, making us wonder for a time if we are right side up or upside down. But being dragged back on course is ultimately life-saving for us, as it was for the old turtle.
Are you safely on your way to places and goals you want to reach? Or are you marooned and feeling a little lost these days? If your life needs redirecting, then perhaps it’s time to submit to the course correction a strong, capable, wise and loving God can offer. Buckle up and hang on. The way back may be bumpy, but the ride is certainly going to deliver you to a better, safer, more life-affirming and sustaining destination.
