American families love to travel. Climbing in the car and heading for the nearest highway is the kind of adventure old and young can enjoy together. My two “little girls” and I have spent the day readying for a journey from Chicago to northern Florida that will begin tomorrow morning. Our family babies are 19 and 21, so these babies will probably do most of the driving.

I’ve been looking forward to our road trip for many reasons, mostly because of what is waiting at the other end: brand new Micah Nathan, not yet one week old, and big sissy Skylar. But I’ve also been eager to spend time with Louisa and Birgitta. It’s been three months since they lost their father to cancer, and I want to come current with what they’re thinking and how they’re coping.

Road trips are perfect for catching up with each other, whether it’s clocking miles on the open highway or sitting across from one another at a McDonald’s table. Once we’ve separated ourselves from all things home and work, everyday burdens lift, and a fresh freedom takes its place.

Our family, like many others, has taken unnumbered road trips together. Nate usually orchestrated these, although I did the packing. He chose the route and determined when we’d make our pit stops. Some fathers push for the goal with a determination that blasts through bathroom requests and pleadings for food. Not Nate. He was a champion stopper, every hour if he had his way.

The reason was that he was such a drinker. Coffee, water, milk shakes, diet Cokes, it didn’t matter. If we stopped for gas, he’d always pick up a coffee the size of a waste basket. That dictated our next stop would be in about an hour to use the facilities, after which he’d come back to the car with another big drink, or maybe two.

I did my best to nag about this, wanting to tick off more miles in less time, but after years of hoping he’d see things my way and realizing he never would, I gave up. Once I went with the flow, I enjoyed the perks that accompanied frequent stops. As he’d go inside for his drink(s) he’d ask, “Anyone want anything? Ice cream? Pretzels? Fishy crackers?” Stopping wasn’t all bad.

As the girls and I have been planning this journey, I’ve missed Nate’s involvement. He’d make sure the car’s oil change was up to date, check the tires for bald spots, do the loading and drive all the miles. I especially appreciated his stamina for time behind the wheel if we were “driving through.” While I had to slap myself or pinch cheeks to stay awake on my night-time shift, he never seemed to get sleepy. He even stayed awake during my shift when he could have been dozing, chatting with me in an effort to be sure I was still awake.

This trip will be different, because Nate isn’t with us. He won’t be participating in the festivities in Florida as we hold Micah for the first time and won’t be on hand for 18 month old Skylar to renew a relationship from last fall. He won’t appear in any of the pictures and won’t be ordering the pizza or the Chinese food. He won’t be gassing up the car, making “newspaper runs” or discussing current events. We’ll all miss him.

Sometimes it feels wrong to be making new memories without Nate. Yet not to do so is to sit in a room and refuse to live life. We have to go. And tomorrow morning we will.

“Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.” (Exodus 23:20)

When the mighty Durango came to me, I thought my ride couldn’t get much classier. The way it climbed the snow-covered hilly roads of Michigan was impressive every single time I got behind the wheel. Just seeing it parked in front of the house as I walked past the window was a continual reminder of how carefully God was tending to my needs through the generosity of others.

My old mini-van sat at the end of the driveway as back-up, despite being reluctant to start. But even though its transmission sometimes slipped, I felt a strong loyalty to this car that had faithfully driven me 100,000 miles without objecting, until now.

Then it came time to make a decision about which car we ought to take on our road trip to Florida to meet the new baby, since we plan to depart on Sunday. My caring brother-in-law Bervin offered his opinion: “The van might break down on the way, forcing you to buy a new transmission, and the Durango is a gas guzzler. We’ve got to get you into a different vehicle.”

Although I was willing to chance the trip in my mini-van, he had a good point. Before I could think about it too long though, I found myself hunting for a new-used car, “something reliable,” Bervin said.

Last night I drove into my Michigan driveway behind the wheel of a 2007 Toyota Highlander dressed in “salsa red.” The Durango has been returned, and the mini-van is on Craig’s List. Now when I walk past the living room window, I see the Highlander, and one thought rushes to mind: when God takes over, the results are stunning.

One of my favorite Scripture verses is Luke 6:38. “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

I believe God looks across the earth at mankind in a search for people who are willing to be his instruments of generosity, and Bervin had made himself available. He’s given and given again to his widowed sister-in-law, not just willingly but in the Luke 6:38 way, pressed down, shaken together, running over and poured into… my lap.

In my Bible, taped onto the page in the margin of Luke 6:38 is a one-inch piece of cardboard with tiny words on it. I cut it off the side of a cereal box in 1994, a perfect reminder of the lavish generosity of God. It says, in print so small most cereal eaters wouldn’t notice, “This package is sold by weight, not volume. Some settling of contents may have occurred during shipment and handling.”

This brief explanation is a rationalization for why the box appears to be half empty when purchased.

God’s ways are the opposite. His idea is to shake the contents down until they efficiently fit together with no room to spare, then pour in more, all the way to the top. But he doesn’t stop there. He keeps pouring until the goodies inside spill over and are piling up on the table around it! This picture is a visual of the generosity of God.

Luke 6:38 came from the mouth of Jesus who says that our personal methods of giving to others (gifts of time, labor, wisdom, prayer, money, encouragement, good deeds, material things) will be what we receive in return. Once we know that, we ought to be tripping over each other to give, before someone else gives to us. I can’t point to too many people who operate this way, but Bervin does. The gifts in parentheses above are the ones he’s given me, and that’s just this week! I look forward to watching God’s “promise to the generous” be fulfilled in his life, to the max!

“You ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.” (Acts 20:35)

I never know when it’ll hit. My tear ducts seem to empty themselves at the most inopportune moments, like at the grocery store check-out or while receiving sympathy from the bank teller. Tears aren’t cause for embarrassment but do make the other person uncomfortable or beyond that, sad, which then makes me feel worse. I find myself apologizing, for lack of something better. “Don’t mind me,” I say, dabbing at my eyes.

I’ve made an effort to be prepared by putting a box of tissue in every room of the house and one in the car. There’s one in the basement and another above the wash machine. Both bathrooms are equipped, and a couple of strategic closets. I even keep one in the kitchen baking drawer, since paper towels are rough on the nose.

But the best defense for unexpected weeping is a Kleenex in my pocket. Having two seems just right, one for the eyes and one for the nose, a kind of two-fisted approach to getting through the moment. As the old commercial goes, “Never leave home without them.”

As most of us do, I have an array of winter coats, some twenty years old but, as mom used to say, “Still serviceable.” Every one of them has two tissues in the pocket. And on Sundays, there are two tissues pressed between the pages of my Bible. After one difficult experience fanning the 2214 pages of my big study Bible in a desperate search for the Kleenex, I had to use my kid glove as a poor substitute. It was either that or my sleeve. Now I let my two tissues peek out of the Bible pages ever so slightly, tipping me off to their hiding place before the next emergency.

Recently I’ve made an effort to study the circumstances around my tears, especially since I’ve never been much of a weeper. So far, every break-down has been different, which is the reason each one is a surprise.

This morning I re-read the words to a song a friend had hand-written in a greeting card. The lyrics were powerful and full of encouragement, but what got me crying was the date on her note, October 10. The minute I realized Nate had still been alive when I’d last read the card (most likely out loud to him), the hurt came rushing back. In a flash my face was buried in my hands, and I was a goner. No one was around, so I felt free to boo-hoo it out, and thankfully, I found two tissues in my pocket.

Last week while hunting for a blog photo in last year’s album, I had another episode. Although Nate’s face betrayed the back pain he was experiencing, when the photo was snapped we still thought the problem was fixable. Neither of us knew the dreadful surprise immediately in front of us. Looking into both of our faces in the photo, knowing Nate has since been transported far away, the whole thing seemed too much to bear, and fresh tears came.

My two tissues are like an insurance policy. If I don’t have to use them, that means all is well. If I do, they’re instrumental in getting me through the moment. When I put my hand into my pocket throughout the day and feel those tissues, they communicate comfort, even before I have to use them.

The other day I was catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen since before Nate’s illness. As she listened to my answers to her questions, her eyes filled with tears of empathy and love. Wiping with her hands but quickly losing ground, she sniffed and apologized until I reached into my pocket. “One for you. One for me.”

“Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff [and tissues] protect and comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)