Vintage

Have you ever been carsick?  I haven't, but I understand it can be pretty miserable. 

Yesterday I took my kids on a day trip up to Lake Alpine to do some fishing and then planned on heading to Big Trees State Park to look at the massive sequoia redwoods and try to teach my children how and why to appreciate God's creation.  My plan was to leave early enough to not upset my wife so we could get to the lake within reasonably good fishing hours, fish, eat lunch, then head to Big Trees for an early afternoon stroll through trees that are the largest living things on the planet (some being over 20 feet in diameter).  

We left about the time I was hoping, and I thought everything was going to go as I wanted---until my youngest daughter threw up everything she had just eaten and drunk about halfway to Lake Alpine (for those of you familiar with the area, we had just gone through that twisty section of Highway 4 right before Angel's Camp that I love to zip through and see how well my vehicle corners).  She threw up on herself, on the car door, on the floor, yee haw.  Luckily (luckily?) we were just passing a shopping center and pulled in, cleaned her and the car up as much as possible, bought some kids Dramamine, stuffed it down all the kids throats, and were gone in less than half an hour. Cool, I thought, we can still get up there in decent fishing hours---until she threw up again.  

This is when the selfish part of me wanted to ignore the obvious discomfort of my daughter and just keep to my plans of fishing and everything else.  This is when that age old struggle of what I want began to fight against what I knew to be right and kind and generous.  I'm sure you've been there before.  We all think we are great people until we are faced with the fact that we aren't going to get our way.  It is how we react in these situations that reveals our character and how much we reflect the generosity, mercy, and grace of God.   Unfortunately, I don't always get it right.  Yesterday, I think I made the right call. 

We stopped at Big Trees first, I gave up the idea that the day would be a good fishing day.  I walked through the most amazing trees in the world and watched my children have a blast climbing in, under, and through the fallen giants and gaze up and the splendor of the living ones (some almost 2,000 years old).  It was a great morning with my kids and I am glad that my selfishness didn't ruin it (A quote from my oldest daughter, "Those trees are as big as the hand of God." To which I replied, "God is so big that those aren't even as big as his finger."  "Wowwww," they replied.)

After the great walk, and settled stomachs, we continued to Lake Alpine.  Guess what?  We caught 11 trout in two hours-one of the fastest paced fishing trips I have ever taken my kids on (the few people we talked to spoke of how bad the fishing had been).  We did it in the middle of the day.  We did it with everyone feeling good and having a great time.  We did it with me thanking God that I don't always get my way.  

That's what carsickness will get you.  A lesson learned that my time isn't always the right time.