Pulling the Car Over

I packed up my one daytime daycare child yesterday and headed out to do errands. I needed to make a phone call to determine my first destination, so in the essence of safety, I pulled to the side of the road to dial. As I did so, the poor lad started screaming from the back seat.

"I'm sorry! I won't do it again. LET ME OUT!!!'' Shocked, I turned around to try to calm him (even though it took me a few moments to figure out what was going on!) Apparently, he had done something wrong, and unbeknownst to me, thought my pulling over was a consequence of his actions. He must be convinced that Moms DO have eyes in the back of their heads. (We DO if there are any children reading this!)

I laughed to myself inside, knowing that his parents had probably threatened it a million times, and his deepest fears had just been realized. I almost felt bad for him until it occurred to me that the reason he was so frightened was that he indeed HAD done something to break the rules and needed to be punished. I questioned him a bit and let him off the hook. I couldn't come up with anything solid!

As I pulled back onto the road, I thought about how the weather seems to be escalating lately. In the past few months, the earth has endured a tsunami, a couple of devastating hurricanes and now a horrible earthquake has rocked a nation. Is this God threatening to pull the car over? Has He had it with our fighting and bickering and cries of "he's touching me!"? If I didn't know about Noah and God's promise, I'd be a lot more worried.

How much is He going to endure before He slams on the brakes and sends us headlong into the seat in front of us, panicking and screaming "Let me out! I'm sorry!" We cry out because we know we have done something wrong. We know we deserve whatever punishment He might dole out. We know as the tires squeal and the brakes screech we had better sit up straight, let go of our sister's hair, and put our hands in our laps in the hope that we'll get a verbal thrashing instead of the one we fear.

Maybe if we do ride along calmly and in peace, this journey can be one without fear, because I bet that after those storms down south, there were rainbows.