Road Trip...Part 1

When is the last time you packed up and "hit the road" (as my dad used to say)? There is nothing better than packing up the car and taking a road trip with your kids! Just a few months ago my mom moved to Corpus Christi. So for spring break me and the kids decided to drive to see her and my grandma that lives there too!  The first hour of the trip I spent listening to a Scentsy inspirational call with Margie Aliprandi, which was one of those confirmation moments! She pierced my soul! I could have listened to her for the entire length of the 6 1/2 hour road trip! Well what I thought was going to be 6 1/2 hours.

From the beginning of the trip it was slow going as the roads were very wet!! We kept thinking that we would drive right out of it! But as we continued down the road we realized that it was not letting up...in fact, it was pouring! So, we just went slowly and then we got to this huge backup! I knew it was and accident! After and hour we made it up to the accident and realized that it had to have been a death! That accident began one of the best conversations I have ever had with my children! As I listened to them share their compassion and thoughts on how sad that made them feel passing the accident.

Our family has not been any stranger to death and loss. In fact, it has always been apart of my children's lives knowing that they have another brother and sister in heaven and watching me grow through my trial of loss!  As I listened to their mature insights about things, I was so impressed with the deep and profound things that they talked about! Every single time we got through an accident it didn't take long to realize that we headed into another back up! It should have taken only 3 hours to get to Austin and it took almost 5!

But, i quickly realized that my kids do listen to me and I heard Hayley from the backseat say, "Well we are not in a rush we can just find the Joy in the Journey! It was so funny...we laughed and laughed! Obviously, I say it all the time! So we continued on only to find out that we were going to pass not 10 but 11 bad accidents all along the highway! As soon as we got out of one we drove right into another one!

So as we drove past each accident it created a different conversation about life? Questions like...What would their attitude be if they didnt have use of their legs after an accident? What if the accident caused the other person to die? What if they died in an accident, what things would they like to be remembered by? What things should they be better at not knowing when you may be in an accident? It was conversations that I shall never forget and treasure

But then there was this one car that taught us all a valuable lesson! I was traveling very cautiously and it irritated a driver that was behind me. I told my kids that he could go around me. He stayed right behind me and finally decided to speed around me and look at me like i was an idiot for driving so slow and careful. I told my kids that someone like that is gonna learn one of these days and its just better to do the right thing and to not have to learn the hard way. So we turned up the music and continued singin at the top of our lungs. Good times!

And here we go once again slowing down because of an accident. We were almost completely stopped as the highway had gone down to one lane. We finally got up to accident and saw a car that was completely smashed and it didn't look good. A lesson my children shall never forget. It was the red sports car that sped around me. His lesson came all so soon! We teared up realizing that we had just talked about how important it is to do the right thing. You can make your choice but you can't choose your consequences. We said a prayer for that young man right then and there!

I will treasure this journey to Corpus Christi that ended up taking 9 hours. Although, we saw many sad things along the way, I will never forget the lessons that we learned.

Find joy in the lessons of life and do the right thing the first time.