Keep on Trucking
For many years my husband and I delivered brand new school buses across the nation. It was a second job, but we both longed to be a globetrotters and the added income allowed our little family to stay on the go. We are grateful for the experiences but they were not without occasional drama.
Also, I am afraid of everything! But I am most afraid of drowning. This terror began in my childhood with nightmares and continues to this day. If my rubber ducky and I can’t touch bottom we don’t get in! I avoid lakes, rivers, boats, bridges, dams, levies…… did I mention bridges?
One Friday, Keith and I picked up two new buses in Conway, Arkansas and began a long drive to Marshalltown, Iowa intending to arrive just after sunrise. Our journey would take us up Highway 65 through the town of Waverly, Missouri, a beautiful little community along the Missouri River. The bridge there was ancient, narrow and at the end of a winding trek down a bluff carved out by old man river’s journey to the sea. I dreaded the bridge. Her rusting steal held a crumbling pavement. I could hug the remnants of a white line and focus on the water raging below, or fight with oncoming traffic for my share of the yellow line. It was treacherous in a normal vehicle and I was driving a bus!
God blessed us with a beautiful night to drive. The sky was clear, the air cool and crisp but as we neared the river crossing I saw a fog bank. I was frightened, and irritated that God would put such an unnecessary obstacle in my path. Stopping was not an option so the miles crept by and I inched closer to my nemesis, the crumbing span across the wide Missouri. But on this night, the road remained wide and smooth. We were on a new by-pass around town headed toward a recently completed concrete bridge! Whew! It was a miracle! But I still saw the fog and worried about the peril it threatened!
Bus number one kept on trucking, bold and brave through the dark, so I followed, trembling and grumping. Suddenly the fog became white light flashing in the night, then transformed into a rainbow of dancing beams. I was witnessing the Aurora Borealis, God’s own artwork, momentarily painted upon earth’s atmosphereI We stopped our buses and stood in the chilly night amazed at God’s magnificent handiwork.
So many times life drags me forward kicking and screaming when I could embrace God’s woven wonder, beauty and blessings. The fog I thought I was seeing was actually the beginning of God’s celestial light show. Had I stopped moving forward, I would have missed it!
I have no authority to counsel anyone on overcoming fear, but I can certainly tell you that God doesn’t tease us with His bounty. He is not a circus clown with a lapel flower squirting water in a face bent to smell the roses. He does not hide His gifts to us under walnut shells that are ever moving and shifting leaving us with barely any hope of finding them. Yet, we act like He does have these wicked intents. I assure you He does NOT. God is good, loving and kind, so just keep trucking.
Love,
Gretchen
Wonderful illustration. I’ve driven that route and know that intimidating bridge. So what experience had taught you to fear did not even confront you, but what did happen was something you never expected to experience. You’ve touched a chord this morning that helped me banish an anxiety about a bridge that might lie ahead…
Thank-you
Thank you.
Thank you. That was beautiful.
Thank you!