Fierce winds and thunderstorms lashed Tampa Bay on Friday morning, May 9, 1980. Traffic was heavy on the fog-shrouded fifteen-mile-long Sunshine Skyway Bridge, a chain of five bridges and six causeways which link St. Petersburg, Bradenton, and Sarasota, Florida.

Suddenly, at 7:38 a.m., the Summit Venture, a Liberian-registered freighter bound for Tampa to pick up a load of phosphate, slammed into the bridge. A 1300-foot stretch of the roadway trembled violently and ripped away from the main span. Steel and concrete crashed down. A Greyhound bus with twenty-three people on board plummeted 140 feet into the water, along with three cars and a pick-up truck.

Subsequent investigation determined that the ship's pilot simply lost his way in the blinding storm, veered out of the shipping channel, and headed through the wrong opening between the abutments. Clearly, losing his way in the storm had devastating results.

Have you ever lost your way? You may now be going through a particularly stormy time of life. Maybe you can't remember a time when so many things have turned sour so suddenly or when everything you attempt has been so consistently frustrated. It seems that each new day only brings additional problems.

Maybe you've never been so financially strapped and you just don't see the way out. Or perhaps the joy has gone out of your marriage; you've drifted apart -- and you really don't mind. You've even begun to think you might be happier if you weren't married.

Maybe you're genuinely lonely. You feel cut off, left out and without a real friend or soul mate. You have no access to a listening, understanding ear.

Perhaps you just can't get through your grief. You still do not sit at the table and eat your meals -- not by yourself. So, you most often stand at the sink and stare out the kitchen window; that is, if you eat at all. You really don't want to feel sorry for yourself, but you suspect that's precisely what you are doing.

Maybe you've lost touch with your children: they don't open up and talk to you like they used to do. You don't know what's going on inside them anymore. Actually, they're like strangers to you. It seems they're yelling or sulking all the time.

Maybe you're a teenager. You are changing. You're not the same person you used to be and nobody knows that better than you! What's more, it's all so confusing and frightening. You're feeling things you never felt before. You don't mean to be so hard to get along with, but what can you do? All these things are happening and you have no control over any of it.

Perhaps you've drifted away from God. You're plagued with doubt. You don't seem to have much faith anymore. When you worship or pray it's like you're just going through the motions. And, when you read your Bible, your mind wanders and you often find yourself simply staring at the page.

All of this and maybe even more is going on right now and you don't know what to do. You've lost your way and you really don't know how to get back on course. What can you do?