My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday (I'm 27 now) and for a month I had been telling Michael that for my birthday he was going to ride a big train with me. Now Michael's loves him some trains, but not trains that you can actually ride on. This may have something to do with the time I took him to the Amtrak station in Raleigh and we stood about 10 feet from the engine when it blew the horn. That even scared the crap out of me, I imagine it was pretty traumatic for him. But I thought it would be fun to ride on an Amtrak with him and I figured he would be really scared when we got on but then really enjoy the ride, so I bought tickets that took us to Burlington and back, about 2 hours of train time and an hour and a half just hanging around Burlington.

I was right. We got on the train and he was screaming, 'Daddy, I don't want to ride the train!' over and over. I got looks of 'Why'd that kid have to wake me up?', 'Oh god, not one of those kids. I wonder if he'll scream the whole trip.', and 'What kind of dad does this to their kid?'. The ticket guy came around and he helped calm Michael down by giving him his 'ticket' and within 5 minutes he was enjoying the ride. We walked between cars to get up to the lounge car, called mom, watched all the trucks, houses, animals, trees, cars and such that passed outside the train. Michael asked the ticket guy for a 'ticket' to give to Matthew when we got home. Burlington was great. Their train station has a display of what the railyard looked like 100 years ago and stuff like that. Michael was pumped to get back on the train when we went home. He even named the train 'Henry' and said we had to bring Matthew, Mommy and Abigail with next time.

Riding on the way back with my son on my lap, I was overwhelmed with a 'this is what life is all about' feeling. It's one of those moments in life that makes you appreciate everything you have and that you pray to God that you never forget. Something about spending time alone with my son, the romance of a train (strange, yes, but there is something historic and romantic about trains), the simplicity of his excitement about the ride, and a feeling of accomplishment as a father. I got my son to trust me, to overcome a fear, and to realize that the ride was worth a little discomfort at the beginning.

So all afternoon Michael's talking about the ride and telling people how much fun it was and talking about taking another ride, but he also would mention that 'henry' is loud and Daddy had to cover his ears. And then when I said goodnight to him, he says, 'Daddy I don't want to ride Henry anymore, it's too loud' and for some reason the air came out of my balloon. Now I'll get him on that train again, but I thought to myself, 'This is probably how God feels about us.' He prods us to points of taking a risk, getting out of our 'comfort zone', following Him someplace we're not too sure of. And the ride is always worth the risk. But somehow it seems like we always forget the thrill of the journey and we get comfortable and think 'Those noises were too loud. I don't want to go through that again.'

Here's to following God to the scary places, to remembering the thrill of the journey, and to letting Him 'cover our ears' during those first few tenuous steps.