The Detour Called Self-Doubt doesn't announce itself. It doesn't put up a sign or flash a warning light. It just quietly redirects you and before you know it you're sitting on the hood of your car at a gas station just off the highway staring at your phone like the answer is in there somewhere.

I pulled off for fuel on a stretch of road that doesn't offer a lot of options. There was one other car at the pumps. A man, maybe mid-forties, sitting on his hood with his phone in both hands and the look of someone who had been there a while. Not lost. Not broken down. Just stopped. He was on his way to the job interview he had been working toward for two years. He had driven three hours that morning to get there. And now he was sitting in the Mojave Desert talking himself out of it.

That's the thing about self-doubt that nobody warns you about. It doesn't show up when you're unprepared. It shows up when you're ready. The ones who make it three hours down the road and then stop are the ones who wanted it badly enough to get there. Self-doubt is not the enemy of readiness. It's the proof of it. This week's Roadside Notes is for anyone sitting on the hood of their life right now waiting for permission. Get back in the car. Finish the drive. The road already knew you were ready.

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/06/the-detour-called-self-doubt/

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Someday Finally Showed Up and it looked exactly like a corner booth at Mr. D's 66 Diner in Kingman, Arizona. Both had the burger and the root beer float. Both had the pie. They had been married forty-nine years and eleven months and they were somewhere in the middle of the greatest road trip of their lives.

No phones on the table. No awkward silences to fill. Just two people who had long since run out of things to prove and were simply enjoying where they were. Route 66 had been on their list since before they were married. They had talked about it the way couples talk about the things they're going to do when the time is right. And then one morning the time was right and they got in the car. Route 66's centennial year as the backdrop. Hawaii at the end. Two things they had always meant to do together. Not one for him and one for her. Both for both of them.

This week's Roadside Notes is for anyone who has been treating the life they want like something they'll get to eventually. Someday doesn't wait. You have to go get it. The road is a hundred years old this year and it's still out there. Still the same two lanes it always was. Go get your someday. It's closer than you think.

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/30/someday-finally-showed-up/

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

She Drove It Anyway and nobody in her life tried to talk her out of it. That part surprised her. She had braced for the pushback, the raised eyebrows, the quiet chorus of are you sure about this. Instead her teenage kids helped her pack. Her sister put a tracker on her car. Her best friend called every evening at seven. And on a Tuesday morning in early fall she flew to St. Louis to drive Route 66.

She wasn't running away. She had been through a divorce, lost a job she was good at, and spent the better part of two years making sure everyone around her was okay. Somewhere in the doing of all that she had misplaced herself. Not dramatically. Just quietly. The way you set something down for a minute and then can't quite remember where you left it. Her dad had driven Route 66 when he needed to think. Told her the miles had a way of sorting things out that nothing else could. She had carried that story for thirty years. This was finally the right time to find out if he was right.

I met her in Needles on one of her last days on the road. She slid onto the stool next to mine with the easy comfort of a woman who had been doing this long enough to feel at home anywhere along the road. This week's Roadside Notes is her story. And it belongs to every person who has been so busy taking care of everyone else that they've lost track of where they set themselves down.

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/23/she-drove-it-anyway/

🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal, stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.

#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives