Sometimes I intentionally take a different route home because I know that my emotional constitution that day won’t allow me to handle these provocations with any sort of grace at all. Most days, I’m both irritated by and perplexed by the sign, and fascinated by the people who chose to put it there.

I’d like to talk with them about how much confusion is created by poor spelling and punctuation.

But kind of like when I was living in Asia and had to learn to accept that translations from Mandarin to English could be rough, I realize that the owners didn’t write what they meant to write. They mean to say “YOU’RE FORGIVEN”.

I want to talk to them about good marketing.

If you use poor grammar or misspell words in your marketing deliverables, your credibility disappears. If you can’t spell “you’re” correctly on a sign, why should anyone trust you to know about anything as big and complicated as forgiveness? You’ve just given all the educated people who drive past your house one more reason to be freaked out by religion. You’ve not made the case for God – you’ve detracted from it.

I’d like to talk with them about trees.

If you took a beautiful gift from me, cut it up, painted it a different color, put some cheesy, badly-spelled words on it, and then said “READ SMALL TOWN GIRL’S GUIDE” on it, I wouldn’t be flattered.

God gave you beautiful trees in a huge forest, and you cut His trees down, painted them a different color, and placed misspelled words on them. Then you put his name on the other side of the sign (“THINK GOD”), as if you’re doing him an honor. I wonder what God thinks when he sees your ugly sign, and I wonder if he misses the trees you cut down to build it.

I’d also like to talk with them about good manners.

There are days when I feel like every church in Missouri has something clever to say, some big new sign in their front yard on which they tell me what God’s like or who God is or how tiny I am in comparison to him. I want to tell those churches that their signs are blocking an otherwise magnificent view of the deep rolling hills God graced Washington County with.

I want to tell them that my hour-long commutes are my conversations with God, and that their all-capital-letter, screaming signs are interrupting us. I want to tell them that God already reminds me of my own smallness with his wall-shaking, teeth-rattling claps of thunder on hot Missouri summer afternoons.

I wonder who’s smarter; the neighbor who can’t spell “you’re” or the neighbor who somehow missed the fact that the Civil War ended 150 years ago.

I wonder which came first; the FORGIVEN sign or the flag.

I wonder how anyone could think that a sign at the foot of their driveway could save someone’s soul or direct them to God.

I wonder a lot of things, and no matter how much I try, I can’t force myself to make any excuses for rural Missouri this time.