Vacation + Family = Trouble!
Ah, yes. It’s that time of year. Time to load up the car and hit the road for the mandatory family road trip. We’ve all done it, as children and now as adults. And as I’m sure we can all attest, you need two weeks to recover from one week of vacation!
Something about cramming the car and traveling can bring out the worst in people. Maybe it is because we are all jammed in together with no escape. Maybe it’s because there is no escape from each other. Whatever the reason, nerves are frayed and relationships tested.
My family hit Disneyworld last fall. We had looked forward to it for a year. I think by the end of the third day, we were all looking forward to getting away from each other. Between a four year old who was afraid of costumed characters, a teenager who had a cell phone connected to her ear, and a husband who felt he was personally bankrolling Disney’s next movie, it was stress from beginning to end.
And next week we will load up the car and head north to visit family. There will be more than 20 of us filling a small cottage, with a couple of campers thrown in on the lawn. We will range in age from newborn to mid-70’s, and we are guaranteed to get on each other’s nerves… so why do we do it?
Because we love them. Our families drive us crazy, and we return the favor by making them nuts. But they are a part of us, whether through birth or marriage. They may make us mad, but nobody else better pick on them, because they are family, our family. Nothing can change that.
And that is how God feels about us, but magnified ten thousand times over. We drive Him mad. We break His heart. He laughs with us and cries over us. Why?
Because we are His family, the sheep of His pasture. Nothing we can do will change His love for us, His patience with us, and His yearning to draw us closer to Him.
So the next time you are tempted to change your identity and move where no one will find you, think about God, our Father. Follow His example.
Love, as we are loved.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I’m sure there will be fun mixed in, and lots of material for future blogs! Enjoy the time away. This was a great blog. It made me chuckle, because, as you say, we’ve all experienced it. We may have been suppressing the last attempt at a family vacation!