It has been a blessing to travel in this country. As a child, I can remember when relatives came to our home from out of town to visit and the many thoughts that ran through the mind about these people. Some were questions like- How have you gotten here? Where did you come from? How long did it take you? Whats so special about all this trip? How are these people connected to us? How long are you going to be here? Let me see if you bought someone for me to play with.? There were the thoughts to see who came and will play with you and what we could play together. Are you going to stay at our house? And how long are you going to be here? Were some of the questions that came up when travelers came to town.
My travels later were a refreshing and curious events. It was a moment to see new places and meet and experience opportunities that were not apart of my home life. These places had maps that needed to be used to find our way or to discover what was there of interest that we could see. In some of these places there were guides or marked trails to show the way, At other times we met family members unknown before who lived in those places. We did some things new and some of the things that were done at home- just in different places and with other people. It was always exciting and challenging.
Than there was the moment to get back to our own home. We had to leave our new found place and return home, After this preparation and exploration the time comes that its all over and we had to get back to that place we came out of- home. Our experiences left us with mixed emotions and attitudes. Going back to normal for us little ones was a chore. Our time and visit had captivated our thoughts fully that we were ready to stay with this new found joy. So packing and reversing our directions, we had to back tract and venture out of this new comfort zone and return to the old standard.
We had conquered interesting places and experiences. There’s coming a time unlike our travel on earth, I look forward to a trip that is out of this world to a place where we will never come back. Its a reserved place for a reserved people and offered by one who came here to lead us there. He left and promised to send us a guide for He had to get all things ready for our arrival. Just like when dad or mom called ahead to make sure we would have a place to stay on our trip. He came to see who wanted to go and went back to prepare the place.
I remember one day on an assembly line in my hometown asking a man if he knew where he was going after he left this earth. We were putting insulation in the cabinets of refrigerators. It was a Friday afternoon and I was waiting to get off that afternoon because I was going to drive to Chicago, a three hundred mile trip. He told me nobody knew where they were going. I asked him if he knew where he was going when he left work that day and he gave me a reasonable answer for that question. I told him if he knew where he was going after work he could also know where he was going after he dies. Than he asked me if I knew where I was going? I assured him, that I definitely knew where I was going. There were other workers there who began to listen in on the conversation. It appeared that their curiosity was being stirred. I told him that I planned to head towards Chicago just as soon as the horn blew to release us from work. I also told him that when I died I would go to Heaven. He looked around and said. Nobody knows that. And I assured him that I did. He asked, how did I know that and I assured him that I had prepared to do that because one had come to show me the way. He became angry. I realized that if he was attending a church the ministry was not teaching the way of life. He was so angry that he scoffed at my conversation and decided that he did not want to talk to me anymore. So I resigned from our conversation and waited anxiously for the horn to blew, And I would hurry off to get out of there. I wanted to get ahead of the evening traffic and onto the road to Chicago. I was dating and hoped to catch a glance of her before bedtime that night. It was normally a five and a half to six hour drive. The horn would not blow till three PM signaling the end of our work week. At eight thirty I was driving up to my Dad’s home in suburban Chicago.