Road Trips Build Relationships

First published Friday, March 30, 2008 in The Daily Sentinel.

What’s a true test of family togetherness? The big Thanksgiving Day dinner? The Christmas festivities? Getting everyone into their Easter-Sunday best and to the church on time? All of those may be a true test of family togetherness, but I now know what can top them all: 40-something hours driving together in a minivan to Texas and back.

Much of both my wife’s and my extended family lives in Texas. My parents, all but one of my siblings, my grandmother, and many aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. are scattered from the top of Texas in Amarillo to the bayous of Houston. My wife’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins are concentrated in Texas, too; but her parents and brother are all here in Ohio.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife’s paternal grandmother died unexpectedly. And so we had to make an unplanned trip down south. From Meigs County, it takes a minimum of 17 hours of driving time to get to Dallas. That doesn’t count being caught in traffic jams, construction detours, bathroom breaks, or anything else. I checked into airline tickets – briefly. The cheapest seats I could find were going to cost us around $2500! Ouch! Driving sounded a whole lot better.

Driving between Ohio and Texas under normal conditions, we always stopped for the night at a motel along the way. But this trip, we couldn’t afford the time that would take away from everything else. So we left on a Tuesday evening and planned to drive straight through.

It actually wasn’t going to be too bad, because my wife’s brother was going to go down with us. That meant three drivers could relieve each other and not leave any one of us totally exhausted. Her brother lives in the Dayton area, so we went there first. One the way, we got a phone call. My wife’s parents had just discovered the cost of flying and were now driving to Texas, too. Would it be okay if they took him as a third driver, instead of us?

Who am I to argue with my in-laws? I’m much smarter than that! So now it was just the two drivers in our car – and that meant it was really mostly one driver: me. My wife doesn’t see as well at night, plus she “hits a wall” about midnight that leaves her dysfunctional until she gets some sleep.

The nice thing about night driving is that one can miss the rush-hour traffic in the bigger cities. We went through Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis and Little Rock during the off-hours and experienced no delays at all.

The bad thing about night driving is that there are more 18-wheelers moving than I ever imagined! And they aren’t consistent in their driving. I was constantly passing or being passed by these huge trucks. And every time we would come near one another, the rumbling of 20-thousand pounds travelling at 70 miles-per-hour was loud enough to shake the van like it was in an earthquake!

I must say that my three kids were real troopers on this trip. Sure, we had our share of sibling bickering, but we also had a lot of fun. You can only imagine the hilarity of stupid jokes at four a.m. I am convinced that the closer one is to exhaustion, the more funny everything becomes!

There was also plenty of time to talk about some serious stuff – the kinds of conversations that can only happen after prolonged togetherness in tight confines. Give people 10 hours of car-sleep-hair, Doritos-breath, and three or more 32-ounce sodas, and they’ll talk about anything! Guards are let down, and some soul-baring takes place. I wouldn’t trade that time with my family for anything!

What’s true for me as an earthly father, I think is even truer for our Heavenly Father. In fact, my relationships with my family are first based upon the relationship God has with me. Why do we get the experience of this life? To give us time together with Him. Some have a short amount of time here, others get as many as 10 decades. My wife’s grandmother lived into her 80s, but she never lost that child-like quality of faith that Jesus describes in Mark 10:14-16:

Jesus said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

How long has it been since you want on a “road trip” with God? Have you had the time to let your guard down for some serious one-on-one time with Him? Have you allowed the rumbles of troubles in your life shake your confidence in your Creator? Or have they focused your driving to stay on God’s highway?

May your travels be filled with goodness and mercy all the days of your life!