“Hey Daddy, I am 14 miles from Briley and I have no clue what I am doing.”

As I flooded him with 20 questions, he waited patiently to answer all of them and guide me towards home.

“Brooke, You need to take 204 North onto Briley, you will stay on Briley for about ten miles, but when you pass UPS on the right you have three miles until your exit. As soon as you pass UPS you need to look for signs that say 1-65 North towards Louisville, but as soon as you're dumped onto I-65 you need to get in the lane beside the HOV lane. Call me if you need me, okay.”

As I hung up the phone with my dad feeling completely overwhelmed, I took a deep breath and realized it was time to put my big girl pants on as I had to go through what my dad calls “Crashville.” God blessed me with a father who works for UPS, which means he drives thousands of miles a week and through Nashville every night, so he knew exactly where I needed to be and exactly where I would have problems. He even predicted my GPS would try to take me through downtown Nashville (it did), which he knew would give me a panic attack. However as I hung up the phone and thought out the task that lay ahead, I began to think about my Heavenly Father.

Our Heavenly father does every day what my earthly father did for me Friday as I drove 199 miles towards home: He guides me. As I pulled onto the interstate there were signs everywhere I looked, pointing in hundreds of different directions. This reminded me of the world. The world has many “flashing signs” pointing us to places that may not be the destination or direction our Father is guiding us. Occasionally we think we can do things on our own, so we rely exclusively on our own intrinsic sense of direction, which will often put us in “downtown Nashville.” We far too frequently listen to forms of direction other than the one we pray to “guide, guard, and direct us”; we repeatedly clench onto the things we pray for God to do, instead of letting him take control of the route.

When I became uncertain of my whereabouts, the first person that came to my mind to call was my dad. He has always been there for me and has never left me in the dark. However, as I thought about how much I rely on my dad, a sad reality came into the forefront of my mind. Why do we so often “call” our Heavenly father as a last resort? Why is it so easy to go days, weeks, and perhaps months without the One who has NEVER left us, NEVER forgotten us, and NEVER lead us astray? Why when we are overwhelmed and lost in “downtown Nashville", we forget our God is a “phone call” away? Our Heavenly Father can be our GPS when we are in deeper than we can bear.

I have not been home for almost a month, so you better believe when I saw the first Bowling Green sign, I suddenly forgot there was a so-called “‘speed limit.” I was elated to finally be home. This made me think about our homecoming in Heaven one day. So many times we cruise through life without worrying about what we are involved in or who we choose to call our friends and we forget where our journey will lead us. Too often we crawl about this path, and worry too much about the “speed limit.” We frequently find ourselves saying “I will read my Bible later" or "Maybe next Wednesday I will go to church service,” but we should desire more than any earthly thing to be “home.”

I waited for three weeks to ultimately be at home with my family. I could not stop smiling and neither could they. Then I imagined the homecoming in the last day, how great it will be when we are welcomed home by our Creator, Savior, and Father. Even though right now some students are missing home more than anything in the galaxy and the next break seems ages away, envision how glorious it will be when you finally arrive at your forever home in Heaven.