Hit the road, Josh!
I wrote this post while we were still on the road a few weeks ago. Since then we have made it to Parry Sound, settled into our cabin, visited with family, had lots of adventures, and begun work to turn our cabin into a short term rental.
Life has been busy and we’ve just been trekking on, but it’s about time I get back to writing so here is a post that shares about our not-so-smooth drive from Whati to Parry Sound.
Most often, when the kids are settled in their car seats and they hear Josh is starting the bus, the boys yell, “hit the road!” It is very cute and reminds me of when my brother used to make me yell, “let ‘er rip!” when I was ready on the wakeboard for him to pull me up.
I haven’t shared anything about the bus for the past few days because well, we haven’t been in the bus. It has been in the shop and we have been in an airbnb. We spent Friday until Tuesday finding a shop that could work on it and then waiting for the work to be done. That was not at all how we saw the trip going and it was definitely frustrating. But, we were never stranded on the side of a road, everyone was safe, Josh noticed the problem and had plenty of time to get to a shop that could get the work done quickly. We ended up in Regina and Josh was able to find us a great airbnb to stay in while we waited. If you’ve worked with Josh then you know that nothing, absolutely nothing, rattles him. In a matter of hours he called over 30 shops and found a safe place for us to stay and got us a rental car for the weekend. I kept busy by taking care of the kids, which was good to keep my mind off the disappointment of being delayed.
It was a minor hiccup in our trip, but we’re back on the road.
Back when we were dating, I remember asking Josh why he doesn’t get rattled by anything. He responded, “I can only control my response. Getting upset isn’t going to help anything.” I think of that often as we face trials, set backs, and difficult situations - I can only control my reaction. As a control freak that used to frustrate me, but then I realized I get complete control over my response. No one else can dictate how I respond to any situation, so in a way I still get to exercise control - it is just over myself, not over the circumstances. Am I going to respond with grace? Am I going to choose to exercise discipline instead of wallowing? Am I going to choose being frustrated with God or am I going to choose to look for His goodness in the situation?
We will be entering Ontario today which is very exciting, but also very misleading. Ontario is massive. And takes 2-3 days for us to travel through to get to Parry Sound. In one sense it feels like we are home when we enter Ontario, but it also really doesn’t. I refer to the cabin as home and I refer to Whati as home. We are blessed to have two homes that feel safe and welcoming and each have their own positives and negatives. There is the cliche saying that home is who you’re with and not where you are, and I think there is truth to that. And I also think home is what you make it. Our first few years in Whati I would get really homesick around holidays and long for the typical holiday activities that I associated with ‘being home,’ but then I decided to make my own version of those things in Whati. We started hosting a lot more and have created an amazing group of friends that are our family up north, a few years ago we started making seasonal lattes and going for a Christmas light walk - it’s not quite the same as going downtown Toronto to look at The Bay’s holiday windows, but I like our northern version.
This post went from finding a mechanic shop in Regina that works on diesel buses to seasonal lattes in Whati - but what I think those have in common is the eternity mindset I have been learning about for the past 9 years. Keeping my focus on eternity and responding to life through that lens.
And let’s end it with that - the way we were able to joyfully get through a set back on our trip was by staying focused on responding in a Christ-like way and not letting our desire to get to the cabin on our timing, turn us into grumps. And our ability to make Whati home and make the most of the opportunity to live there, is by thinking of eternity and the chances we have to show God’s love, share the Gospel, and refine our own character while living there.
That’s all for now,
Rebecca