Making Peace with Wapakoneta

I’ve become very familiar with I-75. Several times a year, I’m on that road for about four hours at a time, and it’s a great opportunity to catch up with friends on the phone… until I hit a certain stretch of road where my signal starts to toy with me. You know how it goes. My phone drops a call without warning, and I look down and see four bars going strong. “Hm. Must have been my friend’s phone,” I say to myself. So I call my friend back, and… the call won’t connect. I look down again and see the signal slide from four bars to zero bars and back again like it’s playing a xylophone. And then I remember. Wapakoneta. I must be driving through Wapakoneta.

Now, I’m not trying to be a hater. I know that it’s not Wapakoneta’s fault. It just happens to be the location of one of those mysterious dead zones that lasts for about 15 minutes and then is gone. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor inconvenience. It’s such a small thing to be momentarily unable to talk on my cell phone. But even when I’m expecting it, I have a strong desire to chuck my phone through my windshield in a fit of primal frustration. Little glitches like this serve to expose the selfishness and smallness of my perspective on life. The universe does not exist to fulfill my every desire and accommodate all my plans. The universe is also not out to personally thwart my desires and plans. There is no conspiracy aimed directly at me when I hit every red light. Win or lose, I’m just *not* that big a deal. And that’s actually really good news. It leaves enough room for there to be a bigger purpose to my life and to the lives of everyone around me (even people who walk too slowly in the grocery store). It’s an invitation to be caught up in something bigger than me, to serve Someone bigger than me who has a greater purpose for my life than I’m willing to imagine.

Last week, I was driving that familiar route on I-75, watching the miles flow by. I needed to stop for gas and a quick bite to eat, and I saw a sign informing me that the next exit was, you guessed it, Wapakoneta. I paused for a moment, and then turned on my blinker. It was a peace offering of sorts. It was an acknowledgement that my Meg-centric view of life is inaccurate and inadequate. And I’m hoping to take it even one step further. I’m trying to be thankful for the reminders that there is much more to life than me. So Lord, thank you for Wapakoneta. Thank you for drivers who dawdle in the fast lane. Thank you for neighbors who are learning to play the drums. Thank you for the daily opportunities you give me to find freedom from myself and the tyranny of my own perspective.