I pushed on the heavy revolving glass doors and quickly stepped into the space created as they turned us slowly out into ninety-degree Portland weather.
Elise was patiently waiting curbside as my wife and I carried our carry-on bags atop our roller-equipped suitcases.
The car was completely packed. My daughter had followed my instructions to the last detail. Everything had been neatly and perfectly packed into the Japanese commuter car I had asked her to rent for our trip.
I pushed on the heavy revolving glass doors and quickly stepped into the space created as they turned us slowly out into ninety-degree Portland weather.
Elise was patiently waiting curbside as my wife and I carried our carry-on bags atop our roller-equipped suitcases.
The car was completely packed. My daughter had followed my instructions to the last detail. Everything had been neatly and perfectly packed into the Japanese commuter car I had asked her to rent for our trip.
“Please get an economy car, with a back-up camera that will get at least thirty-five to forty miles per gallon,” I remembered saying to Elise, a week before our arrival, as she continued to beg for a slightly larger vehicle.
The traffic in the arrival area was not too bad today but the suitcases my wife insisted we pack for our short five-day trip did not want to fit into the trunk.
While the cars continued to pile up behind us I continued to push until my wife’s suitcase conceded, folding up into a space that was several times too small for it.
Sometimes, no most of the time, I tend to be a bit on the cheap side, not thinking things through to their final conclusion or cost. Instead of making reservations at motels, like Elise had suggested, I decided that camping in Washington’s State Park system would be a better choice chock full of family bonding experiences.
My grandson smiled at me from his car seat as I continued trying to stuff my backpack in on top of the ice chest that consumed all the space next to him. I had to push and compress it to get it in past the open door where upon arrival it immediately expanded to fill the entire space to the roof.
My wife was right again as she wagged her finger at me insisting, “You just do not think things through. Next time I will be making all the reservations.”
I chivalrously opened the sedan’s front passenger door for her, then humbly crammed myself into the space left over next to my grandson’s car seat. It was a tight fit, so I maneuvered a pillow in-between my left arm and his car seat.
“At least we have a back-up camera,” I thought proudly to myself as Elise pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor and our adventure began to accelerate towards our final destination. “After all, it was only a five hour drive to Port Townsend, right?”
Sometimes our lives can resemble a car which has been crammed with so many things that we lose sight of our purpose and at times our destination. We aimlessly drive on, not fully understanding what we were put on earth to accomplish. Relationships end up taking the backseat while allowing our circumstances to overwhelm us.
Remember that it is the people in our lives, the relationships that we make that should take the front seat as we travel though life. The baggage we carry with us will always be there, never having enough space or time to get it completely packed away. There are times, times when we get ourselves into a tight place, when we need to use our back-up camera to get out of situations that so easily entangle us and consume our time.
Being part of another person’s life, the relationships we have with them, are the only things that will be traveling with us as we take our final adventure into eternity. Our last road trip will come to an end as we arrive at our Father’s house.
Upon our arrival, there will not be a trailer packed full of material things traveling behind us. There will not be a list of things to do to consume our time; instead we will have the perfect fit into a community of faith-filled people where this world’s system will no longer dictate how we spend our time.
So do not be on the cheap side when it comes to relationships and divine appointments.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:4-10 NKJV.
