Tag: road trips

Basketball, Car Trouble, Faith

This past weekend I got to take my kids to their first basketball tournament. It was a lot of fun. Our teams played well. Our boy’s team got second place. Yay team! Our girls played hard. Our cheerleaders were awesome. I had a lot of fun getting to know other parents from our school. 

I did learn something about myself. I have never been a sports person. I’m not athletic and I’ve never particularly felt like watching other people play sports. Now, I’m wondering if I don’t watch sports because subconsciously I just know I can’t handle that level of excitement/stress/anxiety/emotional involvement. The girls championship game came first before our the boys championship game and I was watching and I did not know anyone on the court and I found myself getting so upset and yelling (it was a vicious game) and cheering and I felt ALL THESE EMOTIONS and I was thinking, good grief, I’m not cut out for this kind of excitement. And then I had to watch our team play right after that. Needless to say, by the time the tournament was over I was wiped out. 

We had to travel to North Carolina for the tournament which meant we had around a six hour drive back home. I made a joke to some of the other parents about hoping I didn’t break down on the way home (FORESHADOWING). I should have kept my mouth shut (FORESHADOWING). I really wasn’t worried though. My husband had just recently fixed some things and taken the same car for a road trip and had no problems.

Just a little information. Our family drives old cars. My husband buys them cheap and then fixes them up cause he’s got skills like that. If my car breaks down, I call him, he comes and rescues me, we move on. I don’t love it. It’s what we do to live on the budget we have. It works well enough. Also means I’ve got lots of crazy stories. 

So, I’m zipping along the interstate, already feeling a little stressed. I don’t like driving at night. I don’t like driving when I’m tired. I was keeping myself pumped up with loud praise music, caffeine and sugar. Then suddenly a bright yellow, CHECK ENGINE light starts flashing and I start losing power. My car slows down about 10 mph and then does a little kick and keeps going and then the whole car starts jerking so I pull over. In the dark, on the side of a mountain road. Nothing around us. I no longer need caffeine and sugar. I’ve got pure adrenaline pumping through my veins. 

I will tell you another thing about myself. When I am in a high stress situation, I start praying out loud. And maybe swearing a bit too. It’s a weird mix. My two middleschoolers sit silently and watch me. Unfortunately for them, they’ve been in this situation before. I call my husband who walks me through some things to check. I open the hood of the car like I know what I’m doing, while my son holds my cellphone/flashlight. Everything checks out. So now my husband knows what is NOT the problem. He finally tells me to start driving again, slow down, see what happens. I check my fuel gauge, I’ve got a quarter tank, I need to stop soon and get gas (FORESHADOWING). 

So I start driving again, out-loud praying has resumed. I quickly discover that when driving on flat stretches or going down hill, my car can go about 60mph before it starts jerking. Going up hill I have to slow down to around 40-45mph. Did I also mention that I’m just starting to head up the mountain pass through the Smokies? 

It’s dark. It’s late. I’m constantly having to slow way down, put on my hazard lights and crawl my way up the mountain. And I’m just trying to get home. I turn off the heater because that has caused problems in the past, so now I’m freezing, got my gloves on, gripping the steering wheel hard. Music is off because I was using my phone to listen to music and realized my battery is low, and I don’t have the proper adaptor to charge my phone in the car. 

I’m driving along, we’ve passed all the cities and we are now smack in the middle of the mountains. Suddenly, no matter how much I slow down, my car won’t stop jerking. Out loud praying and swearing starts again. I look at my gas gauge, I’m below the E line. Way below. I forgot to get gas. I was so focused on trying to keep my car moving, I FORGOT GAS!! Y’all. I’m not cut out for the adventurous life. I don’t have the brain cells to keep track of everything when I’m stressed. I felt like such an idiot. And my prayer became, LORD, I’M AN IDIOT. PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON ME. And I almost fell apart. And it’s weird, but at that moment, I suddenly thought of a book I am reading. In the book the main character is a leader with people under him. And he really takes that responsibility to heart. They look to him for help and he knows it’s his job to help them. And I thought, there is no way an author can create a character who is better than God. God is the one charge of taking care of me, and he takes that responsibility a lot more seriously than some character in a book. He’s going to help me. And then my son quickly points out a rest area sign, Look MOM! A rest area! I debated with myself for a moment. There’s no gas at a rest area, but at least it’s a safe place, better than the side of the road and there will be people who can help me. 

We pulled in and there was a lady outside as part of the cleaning crew. I went up to her and explained my problem and she pulled out her phone and called the Highway Patrol. (*HP if you ever need to call them!). Highway patrol came about ten minutes later and gave me two gallons of gas. We got back on the road and had a little more stress trying to find a gas station out in the middle of nowhere that would be open at 11pm. But, I pulled into a closed gas station and their pumps were on. We got gas, and an hour later I finally got home. 

In the midst of all this, when everything started going crazy, my daughter asked in an uncertain voice, “Are we ok?” And I said, Listen, I’m going to get you home. I guarantee that. There might be some adventures between now and home, but we will get home eventually. And apparently her faith in me was strong because she wrapped herself up in a blanket and went to sleep and slept through all the rest of the craziness. My son even managed to sleep a bit once I got gas in the car. 

As I was getting close to home, I couldn’t help thinking, WHY??? And what came to my mind was that my two middleschoolers got to watch their mom handle a stressful situation. They listened to me pray and ask Jesus to help us and get us home safely and then they got to watch Jesus help us and get us home safely. And they also heard me acknowledge his help and thank him. Christian discipleship. I show you what the Christian walk looks like, and you learn from watching me. And you grow in your faith. And in the process I grow in my faith too. 

Next time though, I think I might rent a car. 

The God Who Stays

I’ve had to do a lot of driving this past week. I’m not a big radio fan, but I needed something to keep me awake so I turned on the Christian Radio. This song came on and I started singing along since I was familiar with it. And as I was singing, God gave me a bit of a download. You see, before I got in my car I had been praying for wisdom for a situation with another person. In this situation I really had two choices. Keep pursuing the relationship, or pull back. I really needed wisdom. And God chose this song to speak to me. Here are the lyrics…

 

The God Who Stays

Matthew West

If I were You I would’ve given up on me by now

I would’ve labeled me a lost cause

Cause I feel just like a lost cause

If I were You I would’ve turned around and walked away

I would’ve labeled me beyond repair

Cause I feel like I’m beyond repair

But somehow You don’t see me like I do

Somehow You’re still here

Chorus:

You’re the God who stays

You’re the God who stays

You’re the one who runs in my direction

When the whole world walks away

You’re the God who stands

With wide open arms

And You tell me nothing I have ever done can separate my heart

From the God who stays

 

I used to hide

Every time I thought I let You down

I always thought I had to earn my way

But I’m learning You don’t work that way

Somehow You don’t see me like I do

Somehow You’re still here

chorus

My shame can’t separate

My guilt can’t separate

My past can’t separate

I’m Yours forever

My sin can’t separate

My scars can’t separate

My failures can’t separate

I’m Yours forever

No enemy can separate

No power of hell can take away

Your love for me will never change

I’m Yours forever

chorus

Songwriters: Matthew West

The God Who Stays lyrics © Highly Combustible Music, House Of Story Music Publishing, Two Story House Music, Be Essential Songs, One77 Songs

 

We sing these songs about God’s love and his character and we get teary eyed. Wow, isn’t it amazing how much God loves me? God is so amazing! I am so unworthy of this kind of love! Thank you God!  

 

But, I think we forget that we are called to imitate Christ. We are called to learn how to love like this. When we sing about how God never gives up on us, how nothing we can do will change his love for us, we need to be thinking how we can love like this too. Sometimes, or maybe even Often, we have people in our lives who are difficult to love. They cross boundaries. They are not faithful or loyal. They have some serious issues they need to get over. 

 

We are called to love THESE people. In the manner that this song describes.

 

I am not saying that we can’t have boundaries or that we have to put up with abuse. But, I can tell you from experience, that even with healthy boundaries in place, it is still possible to extend love and grace. We can still stand ready to forgive, ready to help. 

 

I heard somewhere, a long time ago, that as parents, we are the first people to teach our children about the character of God. And this is what I want to teach my children about God. He is a God of unfailing love. He is ready to forgive us. He is standing with wide open arms, ready to welcome us. Nothing we have done will change that. And I teach this to my children by loving in this way myself. 

 

Car Trips, Sick Kids, and the Effects of Worry

This week has been a bit tough. My husband has been gone for a whole week (gets home tonight, yay!). He and my oldest son went on a road trip to Montana where my son is going to be at a Bible School for a year. They took a bit of time so they could visit Yellow Stone National Park and camp along the way. It was their “We Did It” trip that we are trying to have with each of our high school graduates, celebrating their success at graduating, and our success at keeping them alive for this long. They had a good time and I’m glad that they were able to take the trip. But, it’s been a long week. 

First of all…My son who just left has a driver’s license. I am now taking over all the driving that he did for our family. Yikes. I had no idea I had become so reliant on him to drive my other teenagers to all their events. It was usually not a big deal for him because he was attending the same events, but still, I had no idea. I am suddenly living in my car. 

Second…My two year old waited one day after his dad left, and then proceeded to get some kind of stomach problems that has had him throwing up every night and having crazy-crazy diarrhea. Also occurring at night. During the day, he runs around laughing and playing, eats ok, has a couple diapers that are bad, but then they become fine. Then night time hits and once again he is projecting body fluids everywhere. I finally took him to the doctor today and her opinion is the initial bout of stomach sickness messed up the balance of his guts and so now we’ve got to work on getting that back into order. 

In the meantime, I’m walking around half-dead because all night long I’ve been jerking awake wondering if he’s about to throw up on me. Because, of course, a sick baby’s place is with his mom, in her room, on her bed. The first couple nights I didn’t know he was going to get sick and he came and found me in the night in distress. After cleaning him up, I laid him down next to me in my bed. Watching over him. Making him feel safe and secure. Except that I was then a nervous twit all night. Every time he would cough or sneeze or moan or even roll over, I was leaping from the bed, ready to run him to the bathroom as fast as possible. I had special blankets laid out on my bed. Here, this is your blanket. If you throw up or your diaper leaks, it can all happen on this easy-to-wash blanket. Except, of course, he didn’t want to stay on his special blanket and he would keep rolling over and snuggling up to me and I would just lay there, eyes wide open, feeling like I was holding a ticking bomb. Needless to say, I am on the third day of having to strip my bedding and wash it. 

Third reason it’s been a rough week…Today I went down to the gas station to buy a container of Gatorade for the sick boy.  I opened the little fridge door at the gas station, reached in to grab the drink I wanted to buy, and something went POP in my neck and I was suddenly in very bad pain. Because, you know, reaching for a drink is very strenuous on the body. Good grief. So I then spent the morning heating and icing my shoulder as the pain continued to spread. It has eased up a bit as long as I don’t turn my neck to the right or the left. Who needs to turn their neck anyway? 

I’m trying to have a sense of humor about all this, but I’ll admit my stress levels have been a bit high. I find myself worrying a lot. It’s very possible that my neck popped because my muscles have been in a constant state of tension from trying to carry the weight of the world. 

As I sat here icing and heating my shoulder, God reminded me of something. This is his family. These are his kids. This is his house. He’s in control. He’s got this. Me getting all tense and stressed is not solving a single problem. He has helped us through all kinds of crazy problems in the past, and the current things I’ve been worrying about, he’s going to take care of those too. Right now, all I need to do is take it one moment at a time. It’s going to be ok. 

So, I’m going to sit here and rest my neck. Get my kids to help with the immediate chores and just try to relax for a bit. God is good. I can rest. 

 

Car Trips, Broken Ice, and Laughter

Today we drove about an hour north to go visit my parents. My youngest daughter had a birthday and we were going to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa. We had seven kids in the car, our oldest three off living their own lives. We were traveling on a small country highway and I was looking outside enjoying the view: farmland, creeks and rivers, pretty little towns. We were driving along and I noticed a pasture covered in puddles which had then frozen over. I suddenly had a memory of living on my grandparents farm in Eastern Kentucky, maybe ten years old, stomping around on a cold winter day. I was wearing my old light blue tennis shoes, full of holes but wonderfully comfortable, my old worn out blue jeans, hand-me-downs from my older brother, my pink puffy jacket with decorative flaps on the front and secret inside pockets, an old knit hat and a worn out pair of gloves. I remember stomping through my aunt’s pasture where her ponies lived. The ground was covered in muddy indentations from the ponies’ hooves and each indentation had filled with water from the earlier rains and now had frozen over. I remember the sensation of the thin ice cracking under my feet, my foot bending with the frozen ridges in the ground. Stumbling along as I tried to find more ice to break under my feet. I remembered all this and then felt a pang. My children would not have those country-living memories. They were city kids. And I felt this overwhelming longing to just uproot my family and move to a farm so my kids could know the joy of running through fields in winter, breaking ice under their feet.

We spent the day with my parents and then loaded up the van to drive home again. I love car trips. I love just looking out the window and thinking about whatever random topics pop into my head. I love looking at the houses that we pass, wondering about the people who live there. Watching the sky turn colors until it’s just the stars making tiny dots of light. Seeing the dark hulk of hills looming in the distance. As we drove tonight I thought about all the roads I had traveled on in my life. I remembered driving home from Cap Haitien, Haiti to our little house on the mountainside. Laying on a bench in the back of our truck, watching the moon chase us down the road, marveling that we could never outrun the moonlight. I remember driving on sandy, gravelly roads in the bush town of Bethel, Alaska, looking out from the road into pure darkness, no lights to interrupt the horizon, only our little island of a town, floating on the tundra. I remembered driving the Alaska Highway, the vast forests of never-ending trees. And all the other roads, highways in Chile, cross-country road trips out West. I felt melancholy. I couldn’t share these things with my children. I couldn’t give them these experiences.

As we drove along I started tuning in to what was happening in the car. In the very back seat my eleven and nine year old boys had made up their own little game. The eleven year old was singing favorite Disney songs, but he would stop at key words, MadLib style, and then the nine year old would fill in a random word. In the next row up were my two little girls, seven and six. They were giggling and laughing their heads off at the antics of their brothers, sometimes offering a suggestion of a word here and there. Lots of singing. Lots of laughing. In the next row up my four year old and two year old were strapped into their carseats, the thirteen year old sitting next to them, trying to ignore them. The four year old was holding up different shells from a little container of shells that his grandma had given him. He was explaining that if you held up the shell to your ear,  you could hear the ocean. Then he held up a different shell and said, “In this shell you can hear a crab playing rock and roll on his guitar.” He studied the shell thoughtfully for a minute and then pulled out another shell. “In this shell you can hear a turtle biting a fish.” And on it went, each shell with it’s own story. The two year old was fussing and wanted to hold my hand, but his carseat was a bit too far back and so in order to hold his hand I had to bend my body backwards, stretching as far as I could. It was a position I could only maintain for a couple minutes. I would finally feel something snapping in my back and I would pull my hand back and he would instantly start fussing again. My husband started making up a lullaby with silly words for him in an attempt to distract him. And it occurred to me. My kids have these memories. These are good memories. They are worth having. Memories of outings with the family. Memories of singing and laughter. Memories of talking to Mom and Dad about your shells. Memories of being loved.

I am so happy that I don’t have to replicate my own childhood for my children in order for them to have happy, fulfilling memories. They’re writing their own stories, and those stories are good.