Road Tripping Friends

There are several different kinds of friends. There are casual acquaintances, casual friends, good friends, close friends and many more.  Then there are road-tripping friends.  You need to be very careful who you agree to spend eight days in a car with!  One does not simply drive across California with just anyone.

On paper our friendship with Calvin and Amanda doesn’t work.  They’re almost ten years younger than us.  They have no children yet, we have three.  Its a little strange how we all came together.  But for some reason, it works.  Oh its not perfect.  Calvin can’t eat anything but hamburgers and subs when we’re traveling and after about a day, I hate both.  We give way too much unsolicited marriage advice to them.  We’re pretty sure we’re experts and their marriage should be exactly the same as ours.

But we have a blast together.  This is the kind of friendship where everyone figured out if they even said the word yawn, I would.  I think I’ve yawned a hundred times this trip.  We all ganged up on Michael about his driving.  When we got into LA traffic, we were so fed up with his driving that we just started laughing hysterically.  I was crying.  And almost hyperventilating.  We complained about how many times we had to drive over mountains.  We turned up music loud.  Nobody gets offended when Calvin feels the need to put on his Bose noise canceling headphones.  We all got very, very nervous on that very, very long road in Death Valley.  Sometimes we all talk, other times you could find all four of us ignoring each other and looking at devices.  We play way too much Catan and eat terrible when we’re together.

But these are also our friends with whom we share prayer requests.  We send each other favourite verses from our devotions.  At 4:30 this morning, we were talking about how amazing it was to worship God together at the conference we were at and about what we learned.  We correct each other, encourage each other.  Calvin told me I should go to a workshop about a critical spirit and I challenged him to 24 hours of no complaining with me.  On the day we’re traveling.  I’m having fun with that one.  We take advantage of each other’s skills in the ministry.  Calvin texts Michael asking for sermon ideas.  Amanda and I ran together and talked about how good God is.  We proofread for each other and we all dream together.  We’ve become like family.

I feel blessed to have friends like this.  I miss my kids and my house, but a part of me doesn’t want this trip to end.  But I know there will be more in the future.  I know this because I waited until the end of the trip to make sure that we were still road tripping friends:)  So as we fly home, I thank God for the precious gift of true friends.

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love." - Earnest Hemmingway