Road Trip Calling

First we were four: my younger sister Susan could scarcely walk when we were last all together living under the same roof; that was the year our brother left to serve in the military, and then we were three. Our oldest sister graduated from high school and was off to nurses training at Robert Packer Hospital a few years later, and then we were two.  It would be another 11 years before I left to go to college, and Susan was the only one left.  Oh, we all flitted back home or to reunions to spend a few hours together, two or three or even four of us, for a few hours, but not to spend even an overnight, all of us together ever again….until this last week.

My sisters and I all live within a couple of hours of each other; my brother lives in Virginia in the summer, an hour from Tennessee. The rest of the year he lives in Florida…a longer way away from us.  So, we three decided on a road trip to Virginia, the first time the three of us have spent such a long time together and in such confined circumstances, but you know what, it could not have gone better. And we had a great week at my brother’s, remembering.

First you have to understand that when my brother left, we may have been church goers Sunday mornings, but none of us had a relationship with God. But God who works in mysterious ways moved in our lives, and now the four of us share our faith in God. It may not seem like a big deal to you, to have siblings who know Christ, but it is a big deal to us.

To my knowledge, when my dad came back from the war, he never again set foot in church.  My mother had taught Sunday School in the Episcopal Church, had played the piano there, but her God was too lofty to know personally, and eventually she stayed home with my dad Sunday mornings. But God….He worked in each of us, through our circumstances, through our relationships, to eventually bring us all to Himself, and to each other in newer and deeper relationships.

This last week, I listened again to my brother pray, and even as I type this tears come to my eyes.  My brother is a man of God and has been used of God all over the world, through his life as a military man.  This last week it dawned on me, perhaps for the first time, that although Jim and I and our children served as missionaries in Africa for a period of time, my brother was a living messenger of God to the world, from Viet Nam to Hawaii to Iraq to Guam to California to Newfoundland…well, you get the idea.

The focus today is not to honor my brother, though he has a Bronze Star among other awards, (proud sister) but to praise God for His work in the life of our family.  I was reminded this last week how blessed we all are to know God and to have each other speaking the same faith language…and I am so thankful that road trips are not just for the young.