Enjoying the Ride Part 1

When I was a kid and we were planning a road trip – long or short, it didn’t matter –the anticipation was great. I would dig out my road trip bag and pack an outfit and a book and thought that was good. My morning of the road trip was littered with exasperation from my mother when I was so excited I couldn’t eat and needed cheese to calm me down, only to get sick 2 minutes before walking out the door. 15 minutes after we left the drive way I would say,
“Mom, I’m starving!” She would say,
“You should have eaten before we left.” I would say,
“I tried but it left.” She would sigh and we would go to McDonald’s. Both my parents believed this to be an evil ploy on my part to eat out but fed us anyway. Funny, now that I look back, they always got something to eat too! Everyone stopped thinking it was an evil ploy when this feature carried into my marriage, I just get too darned excited!
Did I mention my packing? To my mother’s exasperation yet again, when we would arrive and I had one outfit we would have to go somewhere to buy one more. Again, the assumption was that I did this to get new clothes. That was much to complicated a scheme for me, nope, I was just so focused on the destination and how wonderful it was that I could not get myself to focus on the planning and preparation for the destination. While I am getting better, I have to for my son, I still do this!
On the actual road trip we only stopped for gas so you better go while we’re there. That meant never seeing a point of interest on the way. Never stopping to see something that might be obscure but neat! These opportunities for enriching the journey are often overlooked by people not just my family. It is like driving Route 66 and never stopping ANYWHERE!
Then there was getting lost. I will never forget the hilarity of one getting lost occasion. My dad would “sometimes” not listen to my mother’s directions,(to his credit this could be dodgy at times) saying,
“You can’t read a map.” But every trip he would give her the map and every trip he would not listen to her and every trip we got lost at least once. This time it was on a Turnpike in IL going to Chicago. In my child sleepy haze – I was 4 – I remember mom laughing in the dark and asking,
“Is there something you want to stop and take a closer look at on this Turnpike? This is the sixth go round? I keep telling you to get off here!” Then her laughter resumed as Dad said,
“I keep telling you that is wrong!” And he drove past it a seventh time, on the eighth pass he took the exit and we were saved! How funny not to listen to the person with the map!
Once we would finally arrive I would be so excited for the first hour. Running around seeing everything new! Where would I sleep? Where would we eat? Is there stuff to do outside? After all that I would settle on the couch and have a distinct moment of, this is it? Home is better but I’ll enjoy what I can! I would sigh deeply and go get my book for a bit of reading before the next adventure, sometimes missing out on the wonder of the new spot.
It was amazing when at 31 I realized that I was living like I took road trips. I was even more shocked to realize that life as a Catholic is not only a road trip extremely focused on the destination of heaven but also one focused on the journey with God in the driver’s seat. So how does one go about this road trip called life and enjoy the ride?

What is the plan?
Well, no good road trip can be had without a plan. However, if the plan is too detailed it is so oppressive of a journey that no one can enjoy it. Ask anyone who has ever been on the military equivalent of a road trip – a convoy – and they’ll let you know all about too detailed plans for road trips.
So it is with life. If you over plan that means you leave no room for God to move you. Not giving Him that liberty in your heart will mean the obstacles and course changes in your journey can make you hard hearted. If you have a heart of stone you will not let God drive on your road trip and it will only get worse. I once had such a detailed plan for life and it was all MY plan! Mark just needed to get out of the military and get a civilian job like I had. We would work from 8 to 5, never have kids, have lots of money, travel the whole world and then die. Sounds pretty great if you are talking to someone with no relationship with Jesus and during that time in my life that would be an apt description. Thank God, He physically removed the wheel from my hands. I had become so angry with my schedule and Mark’s schedule never coinciding and so angry with the Army for TDYs that this rage not only affected my friendships, work relationships and family relationships, it also drastically affected my marriage. Mark hardly touched me and it mattered little to me if he did. I weighed more than I had my whole life and could barely breath to climb stairs thanks to smoking. Marlboros became a past time I indulged in more and more to suppress the beast.(My pet name for the rage threatening to destroy me: its container) Nothing was following my plan! Finally, I got a break and a promotion that put Mark and I on the same schedule. That same week, Mark got orders to Bragg then to Iraq for the next 15 months! Needless to say the sound of my heart of stone exploding into a million pieces as I crumpled to my knees in rage and anger at the Lord for letting it happen was audible! How could He so destroy my plans? I had a timeline and everything! I went to church most Sundays, how could He do this? Weren’t there an abundance of horrible people needing a beating, why beat me? Three years and four months later there is a light at the end of the tunnel of our separation and I cannot enumerate all the wonderful things that God has done in our hearts, minds and lives! I will tell you that it is nothing less than a miracle and we now plan to serve the Lord with our lives, we plan the day to day and we plan to have to replan often as God guides us. Dr. Alan Shreck says it best in his book The Essential Catholic Catechism,
“Thus it is that Jesus can call all his followers to have a profound yet childlike trust in their Father in heaven, in divine providence guiding all things finally to the good and to the perfection of His plan.”(67)
Like the road trips with my parents, I just had to trust they would get us there. I had to trust the destination was good because I’d never been. Sometimes I felt we were never getting there but in the end it was great!
It is hard not to have a detailed plan. Everything about our world pushes us to do it from as young as 3 years old. So I remind myself daily of these two verses:

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Jer 29:11.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Pradis CD-ROM:Ro 8:28.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Until next time, abide in Him and He will in you and hand over the wheel with prayer!