He's still getting me out of jams after all these years.

It’s hard to miss a mountain. But I did. An entire range of them skirting the edge of a city, in fact. I had never driven in Casper, Wyoming, before except for a short trip to Wal Mart that same morning. But when my daughter-in-law got sick and all the men were out hunting, I became the designated driver for after-school pick-up.

I had been to the school at least three other times. I could picture it clearly in my mind. A clean, new building with a green roof and a gorgeous view of the mountains from the playground. Rochelle even drew me an excellent map, which I followed with ease.

Until I reached the crucial turn off from the main boulevard. The map said Left. But I could see the familiar neighborhood to my right. I remembered driving through there each time we picked up the girls. “She’s sick. She must have gotten it wrong.”

I turned right.

And, I was lost within seconds.

After driving around in circles for ten clock-ticking minutes, I gave up and asked a high-school kid if I was close to the Academy. “Uhhhh, no. You’re a long ways from that school.”

Yeah. Got that.

I tried calling the house. No answer. I called my sister in Missouri and asked her to call her son in Wyoming to get me directions. No answer there, either.

Finally I prayed to The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit — because it was going to take all three of them to get me out of this jam. And, They did. Despite the screaming in my brain, I suddenly heard my husband’s wise words: If you get in trouble, always go back to the original plan. He told me that on our honeymoon thirty-seven years ago when we hit a travel snag. It has been one of the guiding forces of my life.

So, I went back to the last intersection before I had gotten lost. Then I looked again at the map. Left. I looked at the road. Mountain. On the left. Oh, good grief!

I found the school within seconds. Lots of kids were still waiting in the pick-up line, but ours were gripping the fence in their usual corner, straining for any sight of the van. When they tumbled into the backseat, both talking at once, Elena told me, “We were just about to go to the office and report ourselves as Lost Children!”

And that, my friend, is what we get if we trust our feelings instead of trusting The Map.