One day last fall I found myself driving from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Staunton, Virginia. It is a wonderful drive across the northeast part of South Carolina and the southern part of Virginia. Very little time was spent on our nation’s interstate highways and I had time to see some of the sights around me. I remember so many images of that day:

• A sign: “we sell minnows and night crawlers”
• Men putting a new roof on a small church set back into the hills
• A woman feeding a “herd” of young pigs
• A sign: “Mega meat sale”
• Fall leaves
• K-Love on the radio
• A crew topping a huge tree
• The church advertising an upcoming “turkey shoot”
• The sign in front of a Mom and Pop store: “My heart is yours”

I really loved the “my heart is yours” sign and I have wondered why it was in front of that store. Maybe it was to celebrate a long-lasting marriage. Or perhaps someone was announcing a budding romance. Sadly, it might have been the cry of someone in mourning of a broken relationship or the loss of a loved one. On the other hand, perhaps the sign was announcing results of the turkey shoot or of the “mega meat sale.” (Sorry!)

As we go through our day, we see so many things. Too often we think that we understand what we see. Maybe, just maybe, we need to pause and let the story unfold or remain untold.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Corinthians 13:11-12)