A Bridge

A couple of weeks ago

I got the chance to go back to a place that has a special place in my heart. 17 years ago, I was going thru an extremely hard time, working 2 jobs sometimes 70 hours a week doing manual labor jobs for sometimes months at a time. My wife and I had only been married for a year or 2 and had just started a family as our daughter was just a few months old and we were in the process of really learning what it meant to be a family. I was also going thru an extremely difficult time personally as I had felt like the opportunity to live all of my dreams had somehow vanished almost instantly because I was under so much pressure and working all of the time.. .It seemed like there was not much hope of me ever living any of my dreams...

UNTIL..... I found this Bridge in Patagonia Lake State Park... My wife and I decided years ago that we wanted to explore the possibility of moving to a border town to be missionaries.,, and so we decided to explore at the time moving to Nogales, Arizona and took a trip there (while we didn't move there - please keep reading).... We were so broke on that trip that we left home without having the money to get home...we barely had any money to camp on that trip and at one point were so broke that we didn't have the money to buy a $2.00 bag of ice if we wanted to have gas money to get home....

I quite frankly drove thru a literal desert, but also a spiritual desert time in my life on that trip... I was exhausted, and mentally I needed to clear my head... and then about 7 days into the trip... my wife, daughter who was 6 months old at the time and I found this bridge overlooking Patagonia Lake ... When I got to the top, I found water in a desert, I found peace in a storm and I found a new resolve to go after the dreams that God had put in my wife and I's heart... At the time I didn't know what that would look like, but looking back.. it was at this bridge that things began to change in me.. I knew that the plan I had been working on needed to be tweaked and reworked a bit... it was a year ... maybe a year and a 1/2 later that I went back to college at 26 years old.. 4 years after that I got my bachelors degree... which opened up a lot of opportunities and ultimately allowed me the freedom to start my own business that allows me to work from anywhere... although it took longer than expected.. its because of owning my own business that allowed me the freedom and opportunity along with a team of like minded people to start a non profit called Square One Cares... it all started because 17 years ago on a bridge overlooking a lake in a desert, that God began to clear my head, to quiet my heart, and to give me the courage to stand up and make hard but necessary decisions to follow his plans for my life and not the dreams that others had for my life...

It was at this Bridge... This was one of my Square Ones... the place where change began to happen in my life...

This bridge will always have a special place in my heart... 17 years later.. I went back this time with a 17 year old daughter, a 16 and a 13 year old son. My wife and I looked over the Lake all these years later and I still have this unexplainable peace when I am here... My life has changed a lot since the last time I was here, My wife and I older.. our kids are almost grown, we own a business.. have moved 1/2 way across the country...started a non profit... but I gotta be honest... the story that began to be written here is still being written with what is hopefully so many more chapters in the book of Mandy's and I's life still to be written. Wherever we go, whatever we do, it will be in part because of what God did in our lives on this Bridge....

I hope that you too find a Bridge that takes you from hopelessness, frustration and fighting hard just to keep going one more day... to a place of inspiration, motivation, purpose and determination to pursue God's plan for your life...

I found my bridge... I hope you can find your bridge

- Josh