Oh Brother!
Watching my nine-year-old grandson irritate his older sister in the car is like a flashback to the sixties for me: the seven-hour rides through the two-lane roads of Georgia and South Carolina; the picking, picking, picking we did to each other…the lack of air conditioning. I liked to read. He liked to aggravate. I was a whiner. He was a devil with a creative view of the truth. He also had a talent for singing annoying off-color rhymes just low enough my parents couldn’t hear. “Nanny nanny boo boo” wasn’t the half. He would cross over on my side of the seat. I would tattle. He says I pinched. We both had a thousand questions. No apps to track our progress then. “Where are we now? How much longer? I need to go to the bathroom!” He’s hitting me! She’s on my side.” My mother used to say, her left shoulder was worn out from the constant turning around to intervene. It’s no wonder they often left for a trip after our bedtime to enjoy the cool and the quiet.
Once we stopped at a Georgia orchard to get a bushel of peaches. The trunk was so crowded and hot, the hamper had to go between the back seat and the front seat. That made the backseat circus even more cramped and disagreeable. For some reason, my brother and I bit a chunk out of almost every one of them. I have no idea why. Our parents were not happy about it. At all.
The trips home were the worst. While we were with our grandparents we were spoiled and petted. My brother and I would take costly liberties. Since it was often difficult to get to the source of the dispute or misbehavior, my parents believed in dividing the blame. You remember the phrase, “Wait until I get you home.” The return trip usually included that mood of free-floating guilt and dread that follows disobedience. (There’s a spiritual parallel in that). I probably prayed most sincerely then that my parents would forget. They didn’t, but the anticipation was always worse than the actual punishment. It made the ride more miserable.
I realized after our father died that my brother shares the memories of my earliest years at play and school—I was Dale Evans; he was Roy Rogers. We shared learning to ride bicycles, learning to check out our own books from the base library, the walks up the street to the school crossing guard past barking dogs and unfriendly neighbors. My brother knows me in ways my husband never could. He knows who I was at the beginning. What I wouldn’t do to get some of those hours back with my brother! The business of life separates us. Those journeys to family members are finished. Our maternal grandparents’ home has been sold and remodeled. Our paternal grandparents’ home lies empty in ruin.
Yet, my brother and I have the same destination on the horizon. Long ago under our parent’s influence, we set our sights on heaven. We both received a solid background in God’s Word. There have been unexpected bumps and detours along the way for both of us, but God has been there through it all. Second Peter3:13 says, ”…in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of the righteous.” God’s roadmap has been up-to-date and appropriate to the times. His Word has always been just the map we needed. “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go (Isaiah 48:17 NIV). We just have to keep following and keep consulting the map. There’s more to the journey.
Thank you, God, for the journey and the fellowship along the way. Make me conscious of the daily direction you provide and the needs of others I encounter. Make my travel count for you.
Oh yes, the long road trips. My sister and I were always fighting in the back of the car, but I cherish all the road trips our parents took us on.
I have had a detour as well, and I am thankful that God called me back in to His flock.
So thankful that God directs our steps!