December 10 – “Driving”

We traveled today.  We went to Mansfield for Josh's graduation Friday.  Traveling is an interesting phenomenon in our family.  Chris gets carsick if she tries to read in the car, so she prefers driving.  And she is a master at it.  She can drive forever.  I really don't like to drive long distances.  There is no particular reason for it.  I didn't have a horrible experience in a car as a child.  I wasn't marred forever by some car crash I had while driving.  I just don't particularly like to drive for long periods of time.  Now, I don't mind going on long trips.  I don't mind the experience of being in the car a long time.  I like to read a book. Or work a crossword puzzle.  Or … well … fall asleep.  But all kinds of things can happen in the car.  I remember when our boys were little we would drive from Denver to Galveston – that was our vacation every year.  One Thanksgiving there was a major snowstorm on the way.  It threatened our departure time, so when we finished loading the car at around midnight, we decided to just leave right then.  Getting to Texas was not very difficult, but by the time we cleared Dumas Chris and I could drive about an hour at a time before we had to switch out and take a nap.  That was one of the longest twenty-four hours I can remember.  And when we got to Galveston we were wasted for two days.  We never did it that way again.   The "real" vacations we took as a family were also road trips.  We would pick a destination – like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  We would set out with no hotel reservations already made.  That way, if we saw something on the way, we could pull over and check it out.  We have seen some real doozies on our trips, too.  My favorite has always been the one place we didn't stop.  I don't remember where we were but there were signs everywhere touting the five-legged cow.  That intrigued me, so we pulled off the main road and went to investigate.  I went into the office area to get some more information while everybody waited in the car.  I got as far as the price.  As I remember it was something like $25 per person.  Now our budget then was not much different than it is now, so $25 was way out of our range.  But I had to come up with something to tell the boys.  So I ran back to the car, jumped in and said, "I just found out that up the road there's another farm that has a FOUR-legged cow!  Let's go see it!"  It took all of thirty or forty seconds for that to sink in before we all erupted in laughter.  That has been one of our family "legends" ever since – looking for four-legged cows.   1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 talks about a trip I don't want to miss.  And I won't have to drive on that one, either.  "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."   Father, thank you for assuring me that you will be doing the driving when it really matters.  Help me remember as well that you can take over the wheel in the little things as well.  Amen.