681 Miles

Dear Jason,
You plan. You’re a planner. Even your plans have plans.
But nothing could prepare you for what happened on the morning of your birthday.
On our much anticipated, nine years in the making, family road trip to Virginia Beach, you had many pit stops planned out but a pit stop to the Emergency Room was not one of them.

In that moment when Romy got hurt, her cut and her cry, cut us the deepest.
But in adversity and trials of many kinds, you never shut down. Instead, you get up, you keep on going and you go that extra mile.

We spent your birthday in an Emergency Room, then stuck in traffic on a 16 hour road trip.
We were running low on fuel and feeling weighed down by our heavy baggage, heavier eyelids and the heaviest bags under our eyes.
In the last stretch of our drive, we were slowly losing light, making it harder and harder to see where we were going.

But you kept on driving.
Sunrise to sunset.
Bump after bump.
Bumper to bumper.
Mile after mile.

There’s a sense of comfort and trust when you’re behind the wheel as we can always count on you to push forward and see any task through to the end.
But when we couldn’t see the road in front of us or the light at the end of the tunnel, there was an overwhelming sense of comfort in trusting that our Faith Driver had taken over the wheel, lifting off all the heavy bags and being that light we desperately needed. Not just that glimmer of light at the end, but illuminating that entire tunnel.

Happy 42, Jason. Your Birthday may have felt like one step forward and forty-two steps back. Setbacks are always going to be a part of the drive, but may you consider it pure joy knowing that setbacks are a testing of your faith which produces perseverance and perseverance when it is finished means that you will be complete, not lacking anything. That when you reach your final stop that you may be able to say “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have kept the faith.”

Our road trip may have gotten off to a bumpy start, but we didn’t let that knock us down and turn back the other way. We arrived to exactly where we needed to be without the help of Google Maps, but His guiding light and extra sets of tail lights to help lead the way and we couldn’t have dreamed of a better week with even better company to end off another blessed summer.

What started off bumpy, finished well.
So when we lose light, may we never lose sight.
Fight the good fight, run the race and keep the faith.

Here’s to forty-two steps forward, going the extra six hundred and eighty one miles, bump after bump, mile after mile, one step closer, no turning back and always finishing strong.
Cheers to the drive.
J