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Life’s GPS

   Written by on May 12, 2014 at 7:53 am

Gail Sheehy’s book Passages was on the New York Times best seller list for over three years. Why? Because we all struggle with and want help to know the right path for our life.

Cheryl Gowin, Counselor and Dennis Gowin Director of Hope for Tomorrow Counseling Center. Any feedback, comments, or if you have issues or questions you would like presented in future columns, please feel to contact us at dgowin@hopefortomorrowcounseling.org.

Cheryl Gowin, Counselor and Dennis Gowin Director of Hope for Tomorrow Counseling Center. Any feedback, comments, or if you have issues or questions you would like presented in future columns, please feel to contact us at dgowin@hopefortomorrowcounseling.org.

In her books, Ms. Sheehy talked about the concept of the passages we all go through in life. In her first book, she drew a picture of our life’s passages through about age 60. In New Passages, she expanded on the concept of life’s passages continuing on to our mid-90s. Amazing how our view of life changes as we grow old, but I digress. Ms. Sheehy’s goal was to help us understand our circumstances as we move through the changes life brings to us. She is often quoted as saying: “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” Ms. Sheehy built on this idea when she said “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!” She might have gotten this idea from the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that the old must pass away for the new to come.

Change is part of life but it is not easy and we all struggle with decisions about the correct direction to take in our lives.

Most of you have probably used a “GPS” system in your car to help you navigate to a new location. When we are driving to a new location we sometimes play a game of having more than one GPS giving directions to the new location. Just to see the different directions we will get. (Amazing, that men will use a GPS but will never ask for directions. But I digressed again). Generally, even if the two GPS systems give different directions we generally end up in the same place. Having that little voice telling us when to turn does help; especially when the voice is telling us to make the next available U-Turn after we ignore the voice and go the wrong way.

Your GPS works by getting signals of your latitude and longitude from orbiting satellites. The GPS then plots your desired destination and current location against a map database, very likely either the NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas database. There is another database that provides information on the directions and destinations for your life’s path. In our practice, we rely heavily on this database of information. That is the “Basic Instructions Before Living Earth” database which is most commonly referred to as the Bible. As Charles Stanley put its “God demonstrates His faithfulness in adversity by providing for us what we need to survive. He does not change our painful circumstances. He sustains us through them”.

Our goal in this column is to provide help and pointers on the struggles of life and the paths you are taking in life. We, of course, won’t be plotting your specific location or course but we hope we provide you with help on the direction of your personal path with the Bible as the support database.

Proverbs 2:6 and 9, “For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding… Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path.”

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