The snow was falling thick and lovely, but the old metal sign under the majestic boughs of the large pine tree by the road was shielded and clear:
“Welcome to Struggleville, U.S.A.”
A four-hour trip ahead of me notwithstanding, I knew I had to have a picture of that sign. So I found a safe spot, turned the Jeep around and made my way back to it. It was just a few days ago somewhere in the backwoods of Georgia, and I was making my way home from a week of preaching a revival, just trying to be careful in the fast-falling snow.
Sure enough, the sign said exactly what I thought it said. It was clearly hand-painted and very old, and rust was beginning to creep up on the bottom of the sign. What in the word could be so hard about a place, I wondered, as to warrant someone giving it the moniker of Struggleville and painting and then mounting a sign in its “honor”?
But more than that, even, what really compelled me to turn around and take a picture of it was the thought that so very many people in their everyday lives feel like that is exactly where they are living.