Jesus Take the Wheel

  • By Trish Berg
  • June 29, 2011
  • 280
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. Life seems to me moving faster than I could have imagined. If you are under thirty years old, you are probably tired of hearing that. If you are over forty, you are nodding your head right about now. The older I get the faster the time goes, and yes, I did walk to school uphill both ways in a blizzard with no shoes. I realize I sound like my parents used to when it annoyed me so. But then something happened. I became “one of them.” Life keeps changing, and now I have a fifteen year old who has her learner permit and is driving the car. At this point, Mike or I have to be with her in the front, teaching her all about speed limits, right of way, three-way-stops and how not to “kiss the ditch,” by driving too far to the right side of the road. She is doing well but I think I am going gray. So for six months or so, we still have control. We still have the front seat in her life and the ability to warn her when she is getting to far to the right or left, or when she needs to slow down so she does not hit the stopped car in front of her unexpectedly. For now, we still are helping her drive the car….and in many ways, her life. But this new found experience has me doing a lot of thinking, and freaking out as well. My fifteen year old is only six months away from driving completely on her own in a vehicle going where she wants to go at the spend she deems appropriate with no one but Jesus there to help her. My hope is that Jesus will sometimes take the wheel and lead her where He wants her to go, in the car and in her life. But that means I have to let go. When I look at Hannah, she still looks like the peach fuzz-haired little toddler that walked around the house with a toy clown in her mouth. The same little girl who stood at the kitchen window and stroked the barn cat through the glass and said “Awwww.” She still looks like the little girl in over-sized Carharts following her dad around the farm wanting to do everything he did. The same girl who crawled into bed with me every morning when daddy got up for work and snuggled with me until it was time to watch Arthur on PBS. And here she is driving a car on the verge of womanhood wanting desperately to go her own way. Hannah drove me to the store today and the speed limit was 35 MPH on the roadway, but it suddenly felt like we were traveling much faster through a time warp into her future towards college, marriage and independence. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to slow life down. I wish I could grant her a learner permit at life so that I could be next to her for all of her big decisions, making sure she goes the right way, guiding her through the detours and pot holes she will surely encounter. But I can’t. Or I shouldn’t, anyway. So I sit next to her in the front of the car and pray that when I am no longer there, no longer needed, that Jesus will take the wheel of her life. And I trust that she will listen. Catch up with Trish at www.TrishBerg.com


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