Speed Bumps

On many residential streets in my neighborhood speed humps/bumps have been built at the request of the neighborhood association. This is part of the "traffic calming" efforts that neighborhoods everywhere seem to need to resort to as cars speed through neighborhoods where children and pets are at play. At first, it was the "cut through" streets that received the bumps, but now many streets on all sides of the "cut through" streets feature them. Even some of the "main drags." I am amused at the number of signs advertising not only that there are humps ahead but giving the number of sets as well. After one has passed the third of three sets, does one have permission to speed up? Or is it to prevent road rage by giving drivers the light at the end of the tunnel?

I am all for speed bumps on residential streets - I have children and pets, too - but at the same time, I don't enjoy driving over them. My Beetle does not have super fancy suspension and they are bumpy. Sometimes the center of a hump gets a hole in in it or at least a sunken down spot and nobody likes to hear that scraping noise when the car bottoms out. It's one thing to keep the traffic at a slow speed but another to cause one to have to practically stop every few hundred feet or so.

More to the point, though, I wish that when one came upon those metaphorical speed bumps in life, there was a sign attesting to the number ahead. It would be easier to hold on if there was some indication of how long this bumpy phase is going to last. It might not make the bumps more enjoyable, but at least it wouldn't seem as if they were never-ending.

I guess this is where an abiding prayer life comes in. A prayer life that reminds us to just let go of that hunched up, grasping desperately feeling and give oneself over to the peace that only God offers. Staying connected with God through quiet listening as well as the naming and then laying down our worries and anxieties may not make the bumps enjoyable, but in the end is for me the only way to get through the bumpy times the way I want to go through bumpy times: in peace, knowing that even now, God has plans for me that are better than I can ask or imagine.