I might have reached the peak of my life’s mountain this morning. It was one of those surreal moments when a really obvious fact just hit me between the eyes. I never know where these things come from…maybe it’s proof that my brain is working even when I’m not really paying attention. I dunno.

So the thought hit me that I’ve been married for 26 years. While my wife’s and my anniversary was almost exactly a month ago, it apparently took my subconscious a while to process this fact. I’ve now been married more years that I was unmarried. That got me to thinking about the path I’ve been on in life. All the stuff I’ve been through, and we’ve been through as a married couple. All the ups and downs, the twists and turns. It’s been quite a journey. And yet, there are still days when I can’t figure out what’s going on, what my goal in life is, and what I want to be when I grow up.

But despite that I often can’t figure out where I’m headed, there definitely seems to be some sort of direction and point to all the events in my life. I know that hindsight is 20-20, but there have been many random events that suddenly come together (sometimes years or decades later) that make a certain situation make absolute sense. It just seems like things can’t be random when that happens.

That’s when I know what Faith means. Not necessarily in the go-to-church-on-Sunday form, but rather in the it’s-gonna-all-workout form. All the little frustrations of life have a habit of moving us towards some bigger goal. All the plot twists in our lives have a point. All the hills that we have to climb to get through a rough patch contribute to making us who we are today. Our journeys are twisty and hilly. Sometimes the path is wide and paved, sometimes it’s a battle through the underbrush. But that path seems to be leading somewhere.

This morning I took a minute and looked back on my life, and I think I saw a lot more than I usually do. So much more was clear. It was just like looking at the road I’d just traveled from a really high vantage point. Sure, trees obscured part of the road, but the general direction was there. I also felt like I could see a little bit better in front of me. That’s what I mean by being on the the mountain top. I felt like both the past and the future came into better focus.

The problem is, I’m not any more sure of the exact destination, just that there is one. I’m not even sure of the exact road that I’m supposed to follow. But it’s OK. Funny how that was a really peaceful feeling, knowing that it was OK not to know. It gave me hope that all the weird things that go on in life really do have a point. And that brought to mind an old TV show, Quantum Leap, and one episode in particular that’s stuck with me all these years.

In the show, the main protagonist is involved in a time-travel experiment that goes awry. During the time travel, he co-inhabits the body of a person and appears to the outside world as that other person, while to us, the TV-viewer we see Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula). Sam also retains all his abilities, although his memories are sometimes difficult for him to access or recover. To leave the current situation and leap to the next, with the hope that the leap will take him home to the timeline where he should be, he had to do something to right a wrong that had occurred. Sometimes the actions seemed obvious, other times they were much more subtle and obscure. I honestly only watched the show a few times, but it’s really a great metaphor for life.

In one episode, Sam had done everything he could think of to right the wrong that he believed had happened. He’s done good deed after good deed. More than he’d ever had to do before for a leap to occur, yet his leap didn’t happen. He was at the end of his rope.

Eventually, he ended up out in the pig pen helping one of the young boys feed the pigs. As I remember it, one of the pigs suddenly got away. They were chasing this goofy pig all over the pig pen, then the yard, and around the barn. Literally yelling and screaming, covered in muck the two guys chased this pig everywhere. Finally, Sam stops to take a breather and starts yelling at the pig to come to him. “Piggy Sue, Piggy Sue”…and his leap happened. Just like that. Turns out, he was chasing the pig with Buddy Holly.

In a nutshell, that’s really what life’s about, isn’t it. Trying to do the right thing over and over. Getting sidetracked. Failing. Giving it your all and sometimes coming up short. But waking up the next morning and doing it all over again, hoping that this time you’ve got it right.

So that’s my nugget for today. Hang in there. It’s all worthwhile and it’s gonna work out. Sometimes everything will make sense today, sometimes tomorrow. It might even take years (or longer) for this all to make sense, but it’s going to.

Really, it will!