One significant fact you need to know about me is that my roots reside in the flat landscape of Detroit. This is a city where major east-west arteries are called mile roads and run unhindered through the city and suburbs. This is a city where you get on Interstate 94 and actually go west, real west, to Chicago. We don't deal with mountains, no matter how high or tall they are.

My husband, on the other hand, is from the Golden State full of freeways and roads that constantly run into mountains or foothills (which still look like mountains to me). The news of a wildfire at Lake Elsinore takes me back to the first time this midwesterner went to California.

I do have to concede that California's freeways are built well. They have to be with all those obstacles, but you can take the 215 to the 15 to the Ortega Highway and snake your way to San Juan Capistrano from where Mom lived. I had no idea what any of this meant.

But that's exactly what my husband, his mother and I were doing, snaking our way to San Juan Capistrano in my mother-in-law's sturdy American-made sedan. Mom lived in the "inland empire," which was acceptably flat, nestled between a couple of different mountain ranges.

As we were driving, the only issue I had on the otherwise beautiful drive was those mountains that loomed large on the horizon as we took an exit to to Lake Elsinore.

I looked over at my husband who was clearly enjoying the drive on California roads again. "Where is San Juan Capistrano?" I asked.

"On the other side of the mountain."

"How will we get there?" I, the innocent flatland native, asked.

"We drive over the mountains," my native California husband replied.

I was silent. What? Was this a joke?

It wasn't. And this was supposed to be fun.

My first car ride over the mountains was a mixture of terrifying drop offs (note: no guard rails on the sheer cliff side of the road) to breathtaking beauty of evergreen trees and flowers.

The road wound back and forth and scaled the mountain. We climbed so high that the view of the desert valley was starting to look the same as it had from the plane when we flew in. At a certain point in the drive, Wil confessed, "When I first went on this road as a kid, I was terrified."

Gee thanks. I am sure I didn't say one word until we began our descent and didn't fully relax until we began what seemed like a gentle slope down toward the beautiful Pacific coast. Note: after we returned home, all Wil's aunts told me that they would never drive that "treacherous" road.

Sometimes my walk with God resembles the Santa Ana mountain range by Lake Elsinore and not the flat miles of roads of my childhood.

I know that I'm going someplace good.

But I look up at the looming mountain of anxiety and wonder how I'll make it to that beautiful destination. Or I'm traveling back and forth, climbing what seems like treacherously high ground. I know I'm just a few feet away from a cliff and sudden and terrifying crash-and-death.

"How will I get there?" I ask God.

Over the mountain, of course, with all of its terrifying moments and unfound fears. The road God gives us is not always flat, not the familiar and easily navigated roads I grew to love and trust as a child.

But I know at the other side and along the way is the breathtaking wonder of God's peace and its guard rails around my heart and mind, and the Spirit's whisper to look beyond the mountain cliffs to where my help truly comes—the One who made the mountains and will not let my foot slip.

I lift up my eyes to hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. . . . Psalm 121:1-3