Road Thoughts

One of my fondest Childhood memories would be sitting in the passenger seat while my Granddad made deliveries of fuel.  I wasn’t old enough to go to school and he was getting close to retirement age, but the years between us did not diminish our connection.  He was my hero, and  in the cab of that truck I was awed by his stories, his knowledge, and his sense of humor.  

On those days when I got to tag along with him to work, it was as if we magically became the only two people in the world. On the dashboard a little brightly colored plastic hand waved back and forth to the people we passed.  All the rigs had one, it had the business information for Husky Oil printed on it,  But Granddad’s was different from the ones in the other trucks.  It was originally red, but the sun had faded it to a shade of pink.  My Granddad had cut the fingers off the plastic hand at the knuckles so that it would match his own.  He had done the same with his leather work gloves.    

I was always fascinated by his hands, they like his arms were permanently tanned brown.  His fingers had been cut off in an oil derrick back when he was a young man.  Though I had always been told it was the result of thumb sucking or nose picking.   On his right hand he had 4 stubs and a thumb, on his left he had a thumb, the pointer finger, 2/3 of a middle finger half of a ring finger and not a bit of pinky.  He used to joke telling  people that he was all thumbs.  He was not handicapped in anyway though!   He was a skilled craftsman and even played the piano.  Though in reality he only played three songs that I can recall, Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater, Chopsticks and half of a duet known as The Knuckle Song that required rolling his stumps up and down a scale and hitting the end note twice with his thumb or “pinky”.  The tune was reminicent of something you just might hear at a circus.  I would describe it to you if I thought you could read my “Droonk-toon-toon,  Droonk-toon-toon” in the same melodious way my memory replays it.”

 In order to peer out the windshield I had to sit on my knees.  Yet even as a child I was mesmerized by the way our truck seemed to devour the yellow and white lines on the highway.  Delivering fuel in rural Wyoming we saw some the best land God ever created.  My favorite route was always Sunlight Basin and the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway just outside of our hometown of Cody, WY.  Truth be told, I held my breath in fear that our truck would roll down the mountainside as Granddad skillfully drove it down those gravel switch backs.  I did the same thing when we went up there in his yellow pick up truck on fishing trips.   Yet once in the valley itself we were able to see true splendor, snow capped mountains, quaking aspens, elk, moose, clear running streams.  Lunch was eaten next to an artesian spring.  The water was so cold, it would sting my fingers, as I held the mouth of our canteen under the powerful flow.  

It’s been nearly two decade since my Granddad Basil A. Underwood passed away.   I still love the mountains.  That same artesian spring is still flowing just as strongly as ever.  I know because I always stop and fill up my water bottles as I pass it.   Most of all, I still enjoy driving down the highway watching as my pickup truck seems to eat up those yellow and white lines.  Things are clearer; life makes sense as you gaze through a windshield.  I do all my best thinking there!

Now my traveling partner is the Lord, and in that sanctuary commonly known as the cab of my truck, car or whatever vehicle I may be driving these days we can talk, and I can hear Him.  Setting behind the wheel, I have cried and yelled at God, when life really sucked.  I have voiced arguments or retold events in my life that my heart was struggling to grasp.   I have also raised my hands in surrender, worship and my voice in prayer.  It is while I sit behind the steering wheel with the radio off that God seems to speak to me the most.  

Perhaps it is the antenna on the hood of my vehicle that enables me to hear Him more clearly.  Nearly every message I have ever spoken in front of a group of people, every serious conversation I have ever had to have, and every big decision was figured out first while setting behind the wheel of a vehicle.  I probably look crazy, driving down the road, one arm sunning it’s self out the drivers side window, my dog in the back trying to lick the wind, and I’m talking away  even using my free hand to gesture as if someone were sitting right there in the passenger seat.

I actually first penned these words nearly 10 years ago.   Life had just handed me a pretty big blow.  I was devastated, and I was angry with God.  Truth be told we hadn’t been on speaking terms for the past several days.  But I woke up early one morning and I knew, I needed some time with my Abba.  So I grabbed my Bible, journal and pen, threw them on the passenger’s seat of my Dodge Dakota.   Told Samson my German Shepherd to load up and we drove 30 miles to the first fast food joint I could find.  On the way there I listened to the radio….I wasn’t quite ready to talk or listen to God.  But after ordering my very unhealthy breakfast I drove to the park, pushed back my seat and began to eat my Bacon- egg- cheese biscuit as I read the Word of God.  Verses of comfort, and direction seemed to jump off the pages at me.  “You’re right”, I prayed.  “Forgive me” I whispered, “Help me to walk this out” I pleaded.    

Renewed I started the engine and headed home.   This time the radio remained off and I began to reminisce about all the conversations my heavenly Dad and I have had, while traveling together.  Inspired I decided, I should write these things down and when I’m old I would publish them as a little bathroom book or something.   Copies could be sold not only at your local Christian book store but at Flying J Truck stops -nationwide.   The cover could show yellow and white lines on a black top, blurry as they speed by.  The title would be something catchy like “Sermons from the road” “Lessons from Life’s Highway” or “Driving with Daddy”.  Maybe it would even have a second title you know the one written in smaller print under the real title.  A summary or explanation of sorts, such as “Revelations From my 4 Wheeled Sanctuary” or even “How God Speaks When the Radio is Off”.  In fact I had several chapters written by the time I returned home….of course that was nearly a decade  ago and all I ever wrote was the few brief paragraphs you have read up to this point ,  followed by two chapters one on snakes and the other on eagles.   Life got busy and I never returned to the project. 

 Life has a way of bringing us around the mountain again.  Here I am facing new questions, new decisions and opportunities, yet plagued by a heart that has been shattered.   I am full of questions, doubts, unanswered prayers and what seems to be promises from God still unfulfilled and I cant see the how.

 Now-days, I drive a maroon blazer with a back seat because my truck was hit last summer (though out of habit I still call my new rig a truck).  My dog, a German Shepherd - Malamute Cross is named Gator.  I am looking at the road before me and seeing several forks I could take, but I am still to hurt and confused by the road of my past to even dare moving forward. 

 What do I do from here? How do I move forward?  Where is God leading me?  

A year ago I shared on this blog that I had 3-4 possible doors that I was considering.  A year later and I have never closed any of them but I have also not pursued a single one of them.  It's like I am stuck, spinning my wheels.  Or the analogy I have used the most when trying to describe my thoughts. I feel like I am a plane on the runway, just taxing, waiting to be cleared for take off...yet oddly I don't know what our destination even is.   At times I think I just want to go to AK, I loved it there and it somehow became home?  Other times I want to get back overseas, there are so many places I love and have a heart for.  And honestly I loved being in Missions...but there's times I am too frozen to consider any door.  I just want to retreat back into my cave of the past year and a half and never come out again!!!   

My mind is always full of ideas, lessons to teach and share with others, burdens for prayer, ministry hopes and dreams for my future.  But this has been a season of isolation, of solitude of having very few people to talk to.  Partly cause I didn't know who I could trust to open up to, I did not want to share in a way that would hurt the reputation of others and so I kept it all in.  And then when I started stepping out of my cave into the real world I was I in a world far from the world I had known.  The people I had met didn't share my values, passions' or an experience they could never really get me. 

Then a snake (quite literally) reminded me of something I had written years before and  in looking for that story I stumbled on this “glimpse into the past”.  I realized, its been a while since I hopped in my truck and just let it eat up the yellow lines while I talked and listened to my Heavenly Dad.  Knowing I  needed an outlet for all these thoughts running through my mind and heart the past year or more I decided instead of finishing that road devotional project I’ll share on that same old Blog I started to help my friends and family keep up with my adventures as a missionary.   

Feel free to come along!  I hope this proves to encourage and build up others as I share.  My plan is to keep things real,  very real,  you will see the good, the bad and at times the ugly.  But I also am confident that the things God has been teaching me in the past year are relevant and will prove encouraging and inspiring to others and who knows maybe it will help us all to hear God, seek His will for our lives and take those next steps. 

“Come on Gator, let's get in the truck.”