Riding from home Saturday evening this past week I came upon a Ford 150 truck pulling a large bass boat.  The black bass boat, a Ranger, was so large the trailer had not two, but four wheels.  I pulled up behind the Ford pulling the bass boat waiting to turn off a local road onto SC Hwy 1.  The intersection was busy in the late afternoon so we both waited for a time.  Looking down at the road surface, I noticed a small water turtle attempting to cross the road from left to right. It was already under the bass boat by the time the boat began to move.  Amazingly, this small water turtle managed to miss (or be missed) by both large tires on the bass boat pulling out into the road.  I paused to watch its movements and delayed my departure long enough to allow her to get off the right side of the road.  I too was pulling a trailer making any turtle in the road a sure bet for a sudden end!  I was relieved this small water turtle had made it safely to the other side of the road.

I returned about 20 minutes later and turned into a local road off SC Hwy 1.  As I approached the same spot in the road near the intersection to my amazement this same turtle was again in the middle of the road.  She was traveling from the left side of the road back to the right in reverse order, in a hurry as before.  I paused again to watch allowing her time to exit on the other side of the road (now my right side) and waited until she was again safely off the edge of the highway.

As I drove home I pondered the dilemma of the small green turtle’s journey.  Why after going across the road in one direction into perfect safety and after such a harrowing adventure did she suddenly turn around and go back across the road to the same side from which she began?  As I considered this matter, it occurred to me that this little turtle, whom I shall call “Francine” was actually looking for the water in the creek under this section of the road.  Apparently, she was smelling the water, but because the road was above the creek she could not decide the best way down to the water.   When one passage proved non-productive, she turned around knowing the water was very close, and retraced her steps determined to find it.  The smell of the water being very strong drove her on this journey.

I thought tonight about this turtle.  A small turtle must find water to live.   She risked everything to do so.  If pregnant with eggs she is driven by an even more powerful instinct to reproduce her own kind.  She needs the water not only to find food and sustenance for her survival, but also to lay her eggs close to the water in the soft sand.  She was searching for the best place to deposit her precious cargo so when the small turtles hatched they too could “smell the water” and quickly scurry in.

I wonder at those motivations which drive us to go in a certain direction but eschew another.  When the road forks what pulls us toward the left side more than the right?  Do we also “smell the water” and go looking for it?  It is the small deviance s in our journey that cause us to end up in one place instead another.  What if we had gone another way?

I have never found a satisfactory answer to my queries.  God gave me my nose.  Does God also enable me to sniff out the water?  Most days, I am so busy I don’t even have time to ponder the question.  Why did I end up here instead of somewhere else?  Why am I a member of this community instead of another?  When I bumble around trying to find my way through this life, is it a thoughtful search or simply a journey fraught by chance and circumstance?

At the end of the day as I pause to consider the journey of the little water turtle on her way across a perilous highway to find her place in the water, I am hopeful God has given me at least as good instinct as this little turtle.  I paused long enough in my journey to let her pass safely on.  Is it because I recognized within myself the necessity of her journey?  It reminds me strongly of my own.  I too am searching for the water.  When I arrive, and I will arrive by the grace of my God, I will remember this little turtle who crossed extreme danger to arrive at her place called home.  On that day I expect to be grateful to God who not only made the water but enabled me to smell it long enough so I too can find my way home!