I don't have walls, I have a median...

I’m in Baton Rouge this week with Team Bohl, six of my favorite people!  The thing about seven people being in a three bed room house is that someone is going to have to share a bed.  Being that I am the only single adult in the house that leaves me sharing a bed with a kid.  I’ve been sleeping in London’s room and mostly sharing the bed with her.  Now I’ve been on many a youth trip and shared many a bed with other girls.  If there is one thing there is an unspoken rule that you should not touch the person you are sharing the bed with.  Not only should you not touch them, you should not cross the invisible median in the middle of the bed.  This invisible median assures you won’t accidentally touch each other in the night.  Well if you’ve ever shared a bed with a child, particularly one under the age of 10, you know they have yet to learn the rules of bed sharing.
 Not only do they cross the median, but they seem to have this innate ability to know exactly when you get into bed and roll towards you.  The first night I climbed into London’s bed she rolled right over and grabbed my arm.  I know she was asleep.  She had been for several hours.  Last night after several nights of attempting to maintain my personal space in the bed I decided to give up.  She obviously wasn’t worried about it, and proved it by rolling over until we were laying side-by-side, so why should I be?

Something about this simple child tendency spoke volumes to me.  How often do we move around each other, and try not to touch or bump into each other?  I don’t even mean literally.  I mean figuratively.  

Then as I lay in bed unable to sleep I started thinking about medians in the road.  The random thought came to mind, “Sometimes when you try to cross the median you get stuck in the mud.”  Have you ever tried to talk to someone across a median?  Or even a yard?  Heck I can’t hardly have a conversation with someone in a store if they are walking in front of me.  Let alone across 50 feet of grass.

The interesting thing about a grassy median is that you can actually cross it.  There are no walls stopping you from driving across.  You can see the oncoming traffic and could be exposed to any driving mistakes that are made.  But ultimately, though there are no walls, you are mostly protected from close contact with the drivers and vehicles headed the other direction.  However, though you can cross a median sometimes it’s tricky.  If it has rained a lot or there isn’t proper drainage you could get stuck in the mud.  

Some people don't have walls, but they do have medians between them and others. They can see the other person, they pass each other by but if they try to cross over they get stuck in the mud.

I can definitely say there are some relationships that I feel stuck in the mud, or I feel there is a median between me and the other person.  I’m open to them being in my life, I’m not trying to keep them out or hide away from them.  I do, however, dance around them, trying to keep them at a distance where they won’t bump into me, get on me or crash into me.  There were once walls between us, but no more.  Now though, I find it hard to cross the median created.  What if it’s soggy and I get stuck.

If a highway median gets soggy because of lots of rain or improper drainage, what makes a relationship median soggy?  Unresolved/unconfronted issues.  Unaddressed miscommunication.  Crossing medians can also be made difficult by tall grass, weeds and brush that has been allowed to grow in the deepest parts.  Unmaintained relationship medians are equally as difficult to cross!

As I was writing this I thought, “Getting stuck in the middle might not be so bad if both people were stuck in the middle.”  Healthy relationships, of all kinds, are a two way street.

I love this median analogy, but I’ve had a hard time really committing to it because a median implies that the people on either side are going different directions.  It’s obviously been a few days since I started this blog.  I’m home from the Bohl residence and was driving to Candice K’s office this morning when I had another epiphany.  ACCESS ROADS!  

With an access road you are heading in the same direction as the people to your right, however, you can’t get to them because you’re on the main road and they’re on the access road and there’s a median in between.  You have to wait for an intersection or an “exit” in order to access the access road and all of the businesses, neighborhoods, etc. that are adjacent to it.

Let me just say I really don’t like access roads.  It’s inevitable that I will be on the main road and want to get to something on the side of the road but I can’t because I have to figure out how to get on the access road.  I don’t like being able to see somewhere I want to be, but not being able to get there..... Oh that could be a blog of it’s own....

I think there are access road median relationships and interstate/highway median relationships in life.  Sometimes we’re headed in the same direction, but we just can’t figure out how to get from where we are across the barriers so that we’re not just traveling in the same direction, but we’re traveling together.  Other times we really are headed in opposite directions.  In that case sometimes it’s better just to let things be, while other times we find that we need to make a course adjustment, get to the other side and travel together in the same direction.  

Navigating either situation is difficult.  How do you know when it’s safe to switch over?  Do you brave the median and hope it’s not so soggy you get stuck, or do you wait until there’s an opening, or an exit?  

A soggy median will only “dry out” when the sun comes out and will only stay dry as long as the proper drainage is in place.  Allow God’s light to shine on the soggy medians that are keeping you from entering into relationships no matter what kind they are.  And ask God to help you install the proper drainage so that the median can’t get soggy again.  Don’t allow hurt, offense, lies and other things soak the median so that it’s not safe to traverse!  Don’t get stuck spinning out in the median of life.  Kick it in 4-wheel drive and get to the other side!