Across America - Again

 {Please note: The new posting schedule referenced in New Wrinkles On the Way does not begin until sometime in February.}




Although the label on this post is Travel with the Youngs, this one should properly say "travel with the young", even though I am not.  That is to say, my husband is not making this trip as he has to keep Holly,our little dog, safe from marauding mailmen and the like.  Work and other responsibilities might also have something to do with it.

The fact is that he has graciously cut me loose this week to return to North Carolina, for the second time in four months.  The week after I arrived home in October, we received the news of a very serious diagnosis, and now a gravely ill family member could use a little company and a lot of support.  And it will be my pleasure to travel with the young, as my daughter and my niece are making the trip with me.

Thus, while the circumstances occasioning this trip are difficult, the actual trip itself should prove to be a lot of fun and fellowship since we all three love a good road trip.

Of course, the time of year isn't ideal for cross-country travel.  As my daughter's husband said, "You know, it is winter across the rest of the country."  (They have to remind one another of this from time to time given that they live in the Los Angeles area.)

Yes, it is a little nerve-making to contemplate a 2,700 mile trip with just us three chickens in the coupe (actually my Buick is a four-door sedan, but it does have a sun roof).  However, we each feel there is a purpose in our making this trip, at this time, and we are excited about it.

I hope to post from N.C.; but we will have to see how it goes.  I already know how it starts, though, and that is with my morning devotions today, as I read Psalm 84:5.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. (NIV)

A pilgrimage is defined as a "long journey, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance."  I admit that this sounds a bit high-flown to describe a trip by two young women, accompanied by one older one, in order to visit a sick relative. 

We are, as my sister says, "a tiny little family."  When my parents relocated our family from the Midwest to the West Coast in 1959, we left behind literally dozens of cousins, none of whom we now know.  There are only a handful of us who really count as family.

You know what they say about family, you get to choose your friends, but family...well...

I am reminded of a story about a little boy who was asked how he knew that God was wonderful.  He replied, "Because He loves everybody in the whole world.  We only have four in our family and sometimes we don't even like each other very much."

Just so.  But when the big questions are in play, things like life, death, love, and loss; well, we seem to find the grace to like each other enough to pull together.  And I think the Father smiles.  Because after all, He loves the whole world.
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The the King will say to those on his right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ...I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Matthew 25:34-36