Cemeteries and sprawling state parks were two of only a handful of places where we could escape COVID in 2020, a year that seemed to linger for decades. Armed with information I culled from an ancestry website and pictures I found in my grandfather’s steamer trunk, I’d take one kid, or all three, pack a cooler filled with unhealthy snacks, and make a run for it. Escapism was suddenly a healthy coping mechanism.
The best thing about being stuffed in a car with your kids is that there’s nowhere to hide. Since eye contact wasn’t possible (except for the occasional hairy eyeball in the mirror for the troublemakers in the back), thoughts, ideas, and opinions were expressed, often timidly, yet with an audible sense of release. Amid all of the dissension in our fracturing world, our family was coming together on the back roads of Pennsylvania. The summer of 2020 will be remembered as a time of understanding and unity.
In continuing our newest tradition, on September 11, 2020, my son and I piled into the trustycrusty Ford Explorer, heavily mindful of this date in United States history. I felt, though, for the first time, that the current state of our country dulled our senses to the unspeakable terrorist attacks 19 years prior. But the images of the Twin Towers were not far from my mind as my 13year-old cyber-schooled kid and I quietly made our way through the winding country roads and narrow switchbacks to a piece of family history. We didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of something sacred.
With a frightening lack of navigational skills, I blindly followed the GPS map north to a covered bridge not far from my great-grandparent’s burial site. Closed off to traffic several years prior, we were able to explore the decaying but no less beautiful wooden red bridge and the surrounding area with few restrictions. In true boy behavior, my son dug out the flattest rock he could find with his ragged fingernails, thoughtfully weighed it in his hand, and sailed it across the water like an Olympian. We lost sight of the rock after the 7th bounce, but I watched a rare moment of quiet pleasure move across his face like sunshine. Ah! This. This is why we cyberschooled.
That one bridge spawned a quest to visit all of the 209 covered bridges in Pennsylvania. Standing at 166, each bridge has a story, and not all the adventures have been pleasant. In four years, I’ve had a front-row seat to this developing teenager who could be filled with angst, anger, questions, and thought-provoking observations, sometimes within the same hour. Prayers in the form of silent screams would seemingly go unanswered as I grappled for an appropriate response. I know that God equips the called, but this? I was way out of my league.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with the endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1 NLT Scholars disagree on who wrote this book, and this particular verse is filled with metaphors that could be applied (or dangerously misinterpreted) differently. But I see my family and non-believing friends as my crowd of witnesses, watching me from the sidelines, wondering how I will respond to each setback. My insecurities and lack of faith are the sins that trip me like a wrong turn on an unfamiliar road.
Still, in my rare moments of clarity, I see a marvelous display of God’s love and sovereignty woven throughout my life like a golden thread—a shining example of His faithfulness.
My son’s high school workload makes our covered bridge excursions less frequent, but with each road trip, I try to remember that this is a race worth finishing, and my endurance must come from the truth in Scripture. There are days when we will bicker when we lose our satellite signal in the valleys and native trees of Pennsylvania, but God is our compass like an outstretched hand guiding us through the wilderness.
What is the race you are running today?
Narrative non-fiction