The Family Road Trip

It started with my visionary husband's idea for a mercy ministry that integrated financial advice and the gospel in a biblical way. Over a year ago, he decided that he wanted to get the curriculum and training from the Chalmers Center to implement in our church and community, and none of my "Honey, let's just do the raising kids thing for now" would phase him. Last year he wanted to go, and I said, "Please wait for next year." This year, the training was at a church in Normal, IL. He would take vacation time to go. Maybe I would go with him. Maybe the kids would go with us too. But this would be the summer trip. I did not want this trip to happen, but sound doctrine being the wonderful thing that is, I realized that my job as a wife is to help my husband fulfill his mission in life and not the other  way around. Since he had decided to do this, I needed to encourage and support him as cheerfully as possible, and not kick and drag, because that doesn't glorify God and it ain't fun for nobody.

I looked up Normal, IL. It appeared to be about as uninspiring as its name suggests. Our only summer trip opportunity - no mountains, no beaches, and no historic sites, just a mildly depressing, flat, midwest town. Then it occurred to me to check how far Normal was from Caleb's mom's house - where we had never yet visited in our seven years of marriage, because we'd been having babies all that time, and the drive is eleven hours. Waukegan was three hours away from Normal - and that became our trip plan. Take two days to drive to Grandma's house in Waukegan, with enough days at her house for Caleb to be with us before and after the class, the children and I stay with her while he drove to Normal for two days training, and then came back for Sunday and her birthday which conveniently occurred on the Monday before we left for another two day trip back. It would be an adventure, and I knew it would be utterly exhausting. I'm already tired from doing the three kids thing at home. But that made me pray about it a lot, which was a good thing. And the closer we got, the more I was determined to go, because I didn't want to miss that time together, however grueling it was.

When we told Caleb's mom our trip plans, she said "We could go to the lake!" I knew that she lived somewhat near Lake Michigan, but I didn't realize it was only six minutes away from her house. As I thought about it, the whole trip began to take on a new color. I would be able to relive with my children childhood trips to Michigan to my grandparent's farm, which was also not too far from the lake (on the eastern shore). Every summer time, my heart feels a compass needle pointing north, tugging me with longings for the region of my birth and of my happiest memories. I would try to be content to tend the garden in our West Virginia country home, only dreaming of aspens, pines and clear, cold lakes twinkling in the light of long northern summer days. Because of the way our trip plans had formed, these feelings had not been part of it before. I knew we would have to drive through Chicago to get there, and I didn't realize that the beauty of the north country lay beyond it. But Waukegan was beyond what I had expected in similarity to Michigan, and during that week, the children and I went to the lake three times - once with Grandma and the baby, and twice just by ourselves - and every time there was such joy and beauty in it and a refreshment of spirit hard to describe.