Flyover Fellowship

I was at church last night for praise team practice. I left before 9:00 PM and got home at 10:30 PM. Normally the trip takes less than half an hour. I spent over an hour parked on the flyover ramp from highway 114 to I-635. A bad accident had shutdown the highway. I called my wife and alerted her to the situation, so she took a different route. She was relaxing at home when I got there.

Yesterday was a long day. I had spent eight hours doing my hospital chaplain visits. For some reason they were more mentally taxing than normal. On my way home I had stopped by Home Depot to pick up forty square feet of sod to finish off a project in our front yard. Loading and unloading that was a chore. By nine o clock was was exhausted. Being stuck on a freeway was not where I wanted to be.

I could have spent the time listening to the radio, or one of the Garrison Keillor tapes I carry in the car. Instead I shut off the engine and stepped out of my car. Soon I found others around me doing the same thing. In a short while there were six or eight of us conversing. I can't say as I got to know any of them intimately but we did have some great conversation. I mentioned to a couple of them that I was on my way home from church. They were curious about the band I sang in. I guess they found it strange that a grandfather, who wears a flattop, enjoys singing contemporary Christian music.

My wife had shared a devotion on frontyard evangelism prior to our practice. The point being that if we spend time in our frontyards, rather than the back, we have more opportunities to meet our neighbors and share our faith stories with them. I guess I took it to heart. Instead of frontyard evangelism I had some flyover fellowship.

So, where is this going and how does it apply to parenting? My question to you, how do you handle life's incoveniences? When forced to wait in traffic or when stuck in a waiting room while your doctor runs behind schedule, how do you react? It becomes even more important when our children are part of the experience. The way we handle the "speed bumps" of life sends a message to them. It helps prepare them for the twists and turns they will have to face.