Home Home. There's home (where you are currently living) and home home (where you grew up). This the farmette I grew up on in Sauk Prairie, WI.
A few days ago, I loaded up my 97 Ford Contour and hit the road for Stevens Point, WI. Over the past 7 years I’ve driven this familiar 90-mile stretch from my folks house to Point at least 50 times. Whether I was going back for school or for my internship with Crusade, I knew the road so well that I can tell you the landmarks corresponding to the amount of time I had left to drive. Oh, there’s the old bridge, I know I’m half way… Only 20 more minutes from this sign… How about you? Do you have a route that you know so well you could drive it blindfolded?
As I was driving, I thought of all the normal routines and activities I take for granted. Every morning, I make a smoothie for breakfast and eat it with a granola bar. I drive 4 blocks to the YMCA for a swim in which I pick the same lane each time. I have my favorite chair in the corner where I have daily devotionals. Every Sunday, I go to early service at Woodlands Church and then teach 3 year-old Sunday school. I have handfuls of families that are always willing to feed me a meal or let me do my laundry (shout out to the Van Arks who have probably saved me $300 in laundry alone the past 4 years). The list could go on and on and on…
I realized the next time I would make this drive would be after the Race, when I come back to my beloved Point to be reunited with family and friends. Since being back, I’ve quickly returned to many of these same routines and activities- I’m still eating smoothies and granola bars for breakfast, I still swim in the middle lane at the YMCA, I still love sitting in my chair, and I’m still mooching meals and laundry off of families.
As I’m enjoying these last few weeks before the Race, I’m more aware of the “same old, same old” that occurs in everyday life. Never again will I be alive on June 10, 2011 so I’m going to enjoy what the day holds, even if it’s fairly normal. Thanks God for the food I’m eating and that I get to choosewhat I want to eat. Thanks for the warm shower and clean clothes and my well-worn chair to sit on. Thanks for roommates and friends and family to share the journey with…
As summer gets kicked off, many of our schedules and routines change. So what about you? What are your “same old, same old” patterns that you’d miss if they were gone? I encourage you to take a moment and thank God for them today.
I guess the old saying holds true- You never know what you got until its gone.
My brother Matthew and me at the Mueller Farm, June 2011.
