Sunday, December 23, 2007

Ticket from Heaven


Note: I wrote this for someone I know who recounted to me his experience and wanted me to ghost-write it for him. So I did.



You never know when and how God will give you doses of life’s lessons and I have realized now that we must always be receptive when HE does.

Over the weekend, I had to travel to Las Vegas and back to Orange County where I live. I had to drive my 15-passenger van with a rented freestanding trailer hitched to it all the way to my destination and back. I needed to transport stuff ( a bed and a heavy duty printer/scanner) from Las Vegas and move them to my home in Fullerton, OC. I have driven so many times before along this route so more or less I am very familiar with the road and how to deal with it. But that weekend, I was towing a trailer and I knew that though I would normally drive at a speed of 70 miles per hour, I had to slow down and keep it down to 55 mi./hr . It takes longer travel time driving that way but I had no choice. Of course I had an option not to slow down and just stick to my usual speed but I sure didn't want to run the risk of knocking down my trailer load and pose a great risk to my safety.


Several times during the trip, I had to negotiate curves. As I approached curves on either the right /left side of the road, I had to mentally calculate and estimate the speed that I need to slowly encroach a bit over the other lane to give allowance to the trailer behind my van to maneuver the turn. And because I did not know by heart where all the road curves in that long stretch were located, I had to keep my presence of mind and be always ready to adjust speed whenever a curve was right ahead—or else, risk life and limb.


ON my way back to OC, (with hopefully the trailer load still held in place), I headed out the freeway and braced myself for the long trip. Several times, I had to pull over because the bed shook and the cable that held it in place loosened. I would not want to create a road hazard with the bed falling off the trailer so I had to check every once in a while and secure it back in place. What a delay it caused my trip!!!!



Tired and sleepy and frustrated about how my trip going back to OC was turning out, I contemplated on the experience at hand and tried to build the connection of the trailer and van to my personal life.


In my journey through life, I have always just cared about the way I want to “drive” our life. This trailer experience showed me the analogous relationship between this trip and the way I hold the helm as head of the family. I have always desired perfection in everything that I do—whether it be in my family, career or personal life. In my attempt to perfect our life, I seldom make adjustments in the speed with which I am going. I never cared to slow down or consider the load that I have in my trailer. When I feel driven to achieve a goal of reaching a destination in life, I forget that I have a trailer behind my van that needs to be secured in place or else, the trailer will skid and fall off. Whenever I set out to accomplish my goals in as short time as I possibly can, I just drive off and do not consider the impact of my speed to my family. I have always wanted to achieve things in a hurry and reach simultaneous goals – so I drive myself so hard to work, doing several things at the same time. Whenever I reach a point in my quest for success where I am forced to slow down, just like when I negotiate a curve while driving, I whine and complain because I don’t like slowing down.


I don’t want the bed in the trailer to fall off—or the entire trailer to lose its grip on the cable that hitches it to my van. And I am thankful that God gives me the wisdom to see my life in my very recent trip to Las Vegas and back. I thank him for giving me the opportunity to pick up the wisdom offered by that experience so that I may relate it to the way I am living my life – which I can see in the way I drove my van and trailer. I don’t want to miss seeing the curve and skidding off the road. God gave me the nudge. I shall not wait for Him to send me my “ticket” from heaven for overspeeding.





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