Ever spent time on Google Map’s Street View? I’ve probably spent way too much time on it, but I find it useful, interesting and fun. I use it sometimes to verify an address, check an entry point and look for other details before I visit a location. But sometimes I like to snoop around and see places I’ve never been, or check out an old address where I once lived or frequented to see what’s changed.
For example, LeAnn and I stopped by my grandparents’ house in Orange, Texas a few years ago while in the area for a funeral, and I was saddened to see the house empty and in rough shape, no doubt the victim of several hurricanes in recent years. But then I checked on it a year later using Street View and found it has been repaired and cleaned up with a fresh coat of paint; it looks ready for a new life with new occupants.
I’ve seen some funny things too, like an image captured at my previous house from the week I got frustrated with my string trimmer and shattered it against the pavement before tossing it in the trash bin. I once clicked through my mother’s neighborhood and could see her in her garage tending to something. And for a while the Street View of our current house captured LeAnn climbing over a little garden fence on our side yard. I say “for a while” because Google is periodically updating those views.
A fascinating quirk of Street View is the way it patches images together from different times and seasons. If you look at the bottom of the screen, there’s an “image capture” date, and the view of the front of our house there now is dated March 2024, with the grass turning green, the elm tree budding and yellow daffodils in the front beds. Going to the corner and looking from the intersection, it’s June 2012, three months after we moved in. Everything looks fresh and new, with green grass and white sidewalks. The trees are sticks with leafy tops, and the flowerbeds are empty. Our SUV is parked in the driveway because the garage is still full of unpacked boxes. Turning the corner, 10 years have passed and it’s February 2022. The grass is brown, the pistache tree is bare and the only color is from the turquoise picnic table on the side yard.
But then I click back to the corner and further away, and turn back to look and, wait, what’s this? There’s no house at all. The lawn is green but overgrown with weeds, and the native trees are wild and way overdue for pruning. It’s August 2007, and I’m living seven miles southwest on Galway in Casa Linda, while LeAnn is five miles to the southeast on Duck Creek.
Looking at that image from today’s vantage point, I feel like George Bailey running down the streets of Bedford Falls in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” wondering what happened to the town and life he loved so much but had lost. And, if I had actually come upon that corner in 2007, I would have had no clue of the wonderful life I would have there one day with LeAnn. In fact, the chaos and emptiness seen in the vacant lot might have just added to the gloom and hopelessness I was feeling at the time.
Some say it’s good to be able to see around corners into the future and know what’s there so you can prepare; some say live in the moment and embrace what’s happening now; and others say don’t look back. Personally, I agree it’s important to devote most of our energy to what is happening right now. But admittedly, it’s hard to not think about the future, and as we get older, to not look back at where we’ve been.
Either way, I’m grateful God has the plans for us in his hands and will get us safely through the seasons and years of our lives – down the streets and around the corners – to what he has planned for us and where he wants us to be. Like with that old house in Orange, he’s prepared a new home and new life for us when we’re ready.