i don’t know why but adam and i love to take our kids on a SURPRISE trip every now and then. one time when they were really little (3,5, and 7) we were coming home from savannah (my brother’s wedding) and we went to orlando instead of tallahassee and they didn’t realize it until we were passing through the mickey and minnie manned gates at disney world that we weren’t going to wind up at home.
then one year we picked them up from camp and headed to washington, d.c. instead of tallahassee. the next year, onto pittsburgh (they were kind of on to us by then).
but this year after visiting charleston for new years we thought we might have one last trick trip up our sleeves. and we headed “home” via orlando. we were about an hour away when millie texted me to ask where we were going. she didn’t want to alert maxx and rosie that we weren’t going home. rosie figured it out next when she started seeing billboards for disney and universal studios (not usually seen in tallahassee).
i do love a good surprise trip. when i am the one who knows where we are going. somebody asked me why we did this to our kids all of the time. i replied that we want to teach them not to ever trust us. ha. not really the truth. we just like to surprise them with an unknown destination.
i think God is like that. He is the God who loves to surprise. sometimes with a side trip. an unknown road. a path we wouldn’t have taken had we been in charge of the driving. and i need to learn to be more childlike in my faith sometimes. my kids have NEVER not wanted to take one of these trips. they always know that we are taking them someplace good. someplace fun. someplace exciting. and that eventually we will wind up at home. with some good stories to tell.
Psalm 90:12 (the message)
Oh! Teach us to live well! Teach us to live wisely and well! ...
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
then we'll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
we've seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you're best at—
the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
