The Journey
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve planned to take the detour over the years, but we’ve always found an excuse not to. I know it is more than a dozen, maybe even a score. After all, the Grand Canyon has been in the same location for thousands of years, it isn’t going to disappear any time soon.
For me, vacation isn’t about the journey-it is always the destination. Instead of relishing the good time we had, my greatest satisfaction at the end of every family trip is talking about what good time we made on the trip and how many miles to the gallon the car got. Truth be told, that’s the reason we’ve never pulled over to see the Grand Canyon, Fort Courage or even the large snake or the buffalos for that matter. But this year was different. It wasn’t that we weren’t anxious to get home, or that any of the other excuses we’d used over the years didn’t apply, it was that we were very aware that this might be the last time the whole family would be driving down that Interstate together.
Soon Stephen will be storing his personal items in boxes and heading off to Boot Camp. And to think that it was only yesterday that we didn’t turn onto the road that leads to the Grand Canyon because we’d finally gotten him to sleep in his car seat and we didn’t want to wake him up.
But this year, we took the exit, made the time to drive the extra miles and wait in line at the gate. And I have to say, I’m glad we did. Certainly it was impressive, but more than enjoying the breathtaking vistas, it gave me a feeling of completion. I don’t mean to suggest it was just checking off another box in my life “to do” list, it was a conquest of self-discipline-of fighting back the urge to be efficient and deciding to enjoy the journey.
Standing on the South rim of the Grand Canyon I was reminded that things of real value take time. How many years did it take for the Colorado River to carve the canyon out of the plain? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I don’t think that when it was done, God looked down, admired His handiwork and said, “my, what good time we made on that one.”
Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).
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