Grandma Henke

Do yo know what a rut is?   It is sunken tracks in a road made by the wheels of a vehicle.    If you have ever ridden on a dirt road that someone drove on ahead of you when it was muddy, and the mud then dried and left deep ruts, you may know how hard it is to get out of a rut.     I went through a bad depression once and came up with this analogy that has helped me avoid going there again.

Visualize a curving road that goes up a mountain and around and back to your house … that has a lot of traffic and therefore the start of ruts … not too deep, just little indentations at first.   You drive this circle quite frequently and if you aren’t careful you find yourself driving in the ruts because it doesn’t take as much effort to steer the car.    Soon, however, your regular driving in these ruts makes them a little deeper and it becomes quite difficult to get out of the ruts when you want to turn off the road.    If you stay in those ruts too long it becomes almost impossible to get your wheels out of those ruts because they are even deeper.

Now picture a chuck hole in the road that the ruts go through.   It isn’t very big at first but when you hit it it gives you an unpleasant jar, maybe you bite your tongue … and it makes the hole a little worse … and it rattles your vehicle.   Every time you hit that rut it gets worse.   The jar hurts your neck or your back, and the hole gets worse, and your vehicle is starting to show wear and tear.    The rut goes through the chuck hole and unless you make a big effort not to drive in the rut you will hit the chuck hole and every time you do it will hurt more and get deeper.    

So … you make a big effort to stay out of the rut … and for weeks you manage.   You have to stay alert and pay attention to your driving all the time because although the rut starts to fill in a little with dust it is still quite deep and if you get in it you will hit the chuck hole.     One day you are driving along and don’t notice that you aren’t paying attention and before you know it you are in the rut heading toward the chuck hole.   You see it and try to slow down so it won’t hurt as bad … but you have hit it so many times before that even though you didn’t hit it as hard … it hurt as bad as the worst time you hit it and your car is further damaged.     It is enough to make you want to quit driving on that road because it feels so bad to hit the chuck hole.     But the road takes you where you really want to go.   If you get off that road you won’t arrive.    So your only other choice is to mend the pot hole.

First you try to put a board over the top of the pot hole.   That’s the quickest way …and it works okay … once or twice … before it breaks and the board flips up in the air and hits the top of your vehicle causing further damage.    So you try something else … you throw a few shovel fulls of dirt into the hole … and that works for a while until it rains and the dirt is washed away.    The only way to really fill that chuck hole right is to use the right materials and spend the correct amount of time working on it.   And even better … while you’re at it, fill in the ruts in the road so your car won’t swerve when it hits them and slip down where it is hard to get back out.

I compare this illustration to disappointments or hard times in life.   If something happens once we can shake it off fairly quickly, twice it takes twice as long … the more it happens the harder it is each time to shake it off and get going again.    If it is something someone does to you it is harder to trust, harder to forgive and forget … until you start thinking you don’t even want to bother taking that road anymore even though it leads you to where you want to go.    Every time you end up in that rut you are trying to avoid, and you hit the chuck hole anyway … it hurts more and longer, even if it has been a while since you last hit it.     The pain is accumulative.   It gets almost impossible to trust yourself or someone else when they even drive close to the chuck hole that has hurt you so many times.

A rut can be dangerous … it can lead you to places you don’t want to go.  It can totally ruin your vehicle … which is you or someone you love.    That’s why it is so important to get out of the ruts while you can, and fix the chuck holes before they are deep enough to cause something to happen that you can no longer fix.     Fix it while you can and fix it right, no matter how long it takes.   Build it back up with the right materials and don’t let yourself steer into the rut again.   The materials vary … sometimes you need someone to help you find what works best for you … but you can get out of your ruts if it is important enough to you.