There’s a lot happening around here at the moment. If you watched this week’s YouTube video, you already know we are safely in Alabama. Thank you to all of you who prayed for our family on our journey. We appreciated it so much, especially when a certain Mississippi state trooper pulled us over because the registration on our cargo trailer may (or may not, you’ll have to take it up with my husband who insists because it was purchased in California there’s some kind of special rule out there) have been expired. When I explained we were military in the middle of moving cross country he let us go without any problems, but boy was my heart pounding for quite a few miles after.
I also can’t talk about this move without sharing a bit about how incredible my dad is. He had to navigate peers also being on vacation at the same time as our planned move and got everything all lined up. Then, about a week before we planned to leave we found out that if we didn’t want all of our household goods to end up in storage we would need to move up our timeline by 4 days. We would have already been in Alabama by the time his flight got into Wichita. We called immediately and told him we were so sorry for all the work he had to do to make the first plan work, how sorry we were to be changing things last minute, etc. He didn’t even flinch. He (and my mom, she’s a flight ticket wiz) got the tickets changed and he workout whatever needed to be done at work so he could drive with us. He drove my car, with 4 of the 6 kids, hauling that semi-registered cargo trailer, from Kansas to Alabama without complaining once. He then stayed for 2 days and helped Ben get the trailer unloaded, reloaded with storage stuff, and stored. And helped get the camper pushed into the garage after helping reorganize the garage (have I mentioned tomorrow it’s going to be 109 Fahrenheit tomorrow). AND still found time to play in the community pool, spend time on the floor building and rebuilding towers for Nathan to crash, hear all about the kids’ Zelda and Super Mario games, and I could go on.
I’m exhausted just writing about all the things my dad, Papa to the kids, got done while he was with us. We would be no where, absolutely no where, near where we are right now if he hadn’t come. I will always talk about this crazy move with our kids, because I want to share this story with them. I want them to remember the fun memories of being thrown across the pool and playing Minecraft Uno with all the rules (my dad likes to read all the rules before starting a game). But more importantly, I want them to remember what an incredibly selfless choice this was.
My dad did not have to come. We made it very clear that we did not expect him to rush to change all kinds of things to make this work. He did anyway. He could have griped about only going 60 miles an hour the whole first day (Ben tries to manage the number of times we have to stop for gas) (we got to go 65 on day two, hooray!). He didn’t. He could have said, “No, I think I’ll take the room to myself if that’s ok, it’s been a long day in the car with the kids and tomorrow will be just as long,” when we stopped overnight. He had 3 kids in his room with him, including the 4 year old who kicks in his sleep but adores his Papa. Every time I turned around, there he was, doing something sweet or kind or helpful. He was amazing.
While I know this story isn’t exactly what our Gospel is about, in a way it is. What I saw in my dad was someone who was putting Jesus first. He continually showed our whole family what it means to show up and be present in this moment. What crosses we asked him to carry, he carried. He so perfectly modeled that song from Mass, “Here I am, Lord, here I am. I come to do Your Will.” This is what I hope our family remembers from this past week.
For something a little more on topic for the Gospel reading, be sure to check out the YouTube video below.
Daily Graces 