Every Turn, Is Just Another Way Home.

This week, I had planned to write to you about joy.

I wanted to explore the lightness I’ve been feeling lately, the pockets of goodness I’ve been collecting this season, and the quiet considerations I’ve made along the way.

But today, something more present is sitting in my chest and it feels too alive not to share.

I’m currently writing from a park bench, this is my view.

Beautiful right?

Earlier, I felt a nudge to take a walk before my scheduled call with a brother of mine. I don’t usually obey nudges like that. The idea of walking, to me, has always been unglamorous.

Like come on, I’m a sprinter at heart!

Truly, the slow pace of walking feels rather inefficient for me— frustrating in fact. And a great lesson you learn very quickly as a sprinter, is that sometimes it’s harder to move slowly than to move quickly.

Thank you coach for the endless slow 300’s.

Still, I listened. I walked. And I’m thankful I did.

During the call, my friend and I wandered through weighty conversation. We spoke about our commitments, the big shifts in our lives, and the subtle ways we see God moving in the background.

I love these talks!

They pull me into self-examination, into asking, Where I am in relation to Him? I often end them charged with a renewed desire to return to Jesus to try better.

While we spoke, I noticed a little girl nearby. She edged closer and closer during the call, until she was right in my periphery, even crashing into my bench at some point.

She was learning to ride a bike for the first time.

She couldn’t have been more than seven and It was beautiful to watch her navigate the journey. She’d often fall, get up, feel deflated, find courage, and try again.

Through out the hour long plus conversation, I watched her learn from a gentle push to mounting on the pedals herself and riding. She eventually became an expert at going straight—confident, even. But in every turn or incoming obstacle, it sent her wobbling. Sometimes she’d fall, her head dipping in the kind of disappointment you can almost hear. Her mum would snap, “Why did you stop pedalling?” And then she’d climb back on and try again, building the confidence back up.

The more I watched, the clearer it became…she wasn’t falling because she couldn’t ride. She was falling because, no one had taught her how to turn.

I laughed mid-conversation with Dumi, tempted to step in and show her. She didn’t need more confidence in going straight, she needed more confidence in leaning into the imbalance. Most preciously, how not to stop pedalling when the ground shifted beneath her.

For forty-five minutes, I watched her pedal into the curve. Wobble. Fall. Try again.

And then I felt it—God speaking to me. Not in words, but in a kind of knowing, a visual parable unfolding in real time.

That’s how we are sometimes.

There are seasons where we feel like we’re falling, and incase this is you, consider that those moments are not for you to stop, but for you to learn how to appropriately handle are the turn, because in life there will always be more turns.

I don’t know about you but often in life things can get so monotonous that we could be dragged into the false sense of expertise. In other words, it’s like we’ve been here long enough to know how it goes—We’ve become masters at the straight path.

In fact, we’ve learnt how to picked up speed at many things. Until something comes in, a breeze, an obstacle, a turn (a bench)

And we realise quickly that we’re not as great as we had thought to be—The turn quickly exposes what we haven’t yet learned.

We’ve been riding long enough to believe we’re skilled, but when the road bends unexpectedly, our balance falters.

Sometimes, in our need to perform— to show the onlooker’s how great we’ve become, we go in one direction rather than learn to move in all directions. But God, in His kindness, often steers us into a curve, not to trip us up, but to teach us how to truly ride.

So maybe this is you.

Let me say this, the wobble you’ve just gone through isn’t failure. It’s redirection. That gentle breeze is actually a push us toward the place you’re meant to be. It’s not always in sudden, dramatic shifts, but in quiet, almost imperceptible leaning that feels like failure or falling in this case.

I think we could live far more beautiful lives if we learned to meet the turn with trust. To keep moving through the imbalance, believing that, that wobble won’t be the end of us. More often than not, it’s carrying us somewhere better.

Perhaps this is what faith feels like:

Small hands gripping the handlebars.

Eyes wide to the unknown.

Feet moving in rhythm even as the ground tilts.

It is the courage to meet the curve without bracing for disaster, to see the road bend and believe its arc is leading us somewhere worth arriving.

Because the truth is in every turn—every awkward, unsteady, exhilarating moment…that turn, is just another way home.

Stay pedalling through it.

Love, J.