Once, I drove 7 hours to see Wendy for 10 minutes. I didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did, mostly because of how much I love her and a little because of how much I misread the map. It all started when I said yes to speaking at a big youth retreat that was actually small.
When you’re on the road and your livelihood comes from speaking, it’s important that you actually speak, and when you get a call to come to a retreat center in the bottom right corner of Tennessee and to a rowdy roomful of teenagers, you say yes. Which is exactly what I did. (Small side note: it was at this same retreat that I got to meet the band Tenth Avenue North before they hit it big. Great band, better people.)
What I didn’t know at the time was that Wendy’s side of the family was also planning a pretty big event: a surprise 80th birthday party for Wendy’s Grandma. We got the invitation a little bit after I had already said yes to the retreat, and since I’d given them my word (and my family likes to eat and pay bills and stuff like that), we both knew that I was going to miss the big surprise that was going to happen on the same Saturday as the retreat.
It was one of those times when you wish you could have super powers that would allow you to be in 2 places at once or have supersonic speed. Having neither, I got in the car and made the long drive to Cross Creek Camp in Copperhill, Tennessee, as my wife made the trip to Campobello, South Carolina (in the South, we’re nothing if not great namers of towns).
When I arrived, I checked the retreat schedule. I was to speak Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday morning. Suddenly, I had a plan. The surprise 80th birthday party was happening around lunch on Saturday, and I was free from 9 until 5, why not add one more surprise to the party by showing up? Since I was in the most southeastern part of Tennessee and the party was in the most northwestern part of South Carolina, how far apart could they possibly be, right?
Turns out, about 3 and a half hours. Forget superpowers, I’d settle for better map reading ability! Not being able to Google directions, I actually had to look at a map that you fold, and while a couple of inches looks like it wouldn’t take long, don’t be fooled. An inch of mountain roads takes forever.
Around 2 hours into the “Great Surprise of 2006,” I did some time calculations and realized that I would arrive at the party long enough to say hey to Wendy, her family and her Grandma before grabbing some punch and heading back in order to be there for my next speaking engagement. And that’s how I ended up driving 7 hours on winding mountain roads to spend 10 minutes with a wife who couldn’t stop smiling.
I’d say my plan worked out perfectly.
We talk a lot about the depths of love, but it’s hard to really see stuff that goes deep because, well, it’s deep and hidden. But the lengths of love are how the depths of love are displayed, and there’s no better day to remember that than on Good Friday.
It’s an odd name for a sad day. It was on this day that Jesus went to the cross to die a death He never deserved so that He could offer us a life we never deserved. It was the culmination of a long journey that began when He left a pretty good seat in heaven to make the long winding journey to a stable in Bethlehem that eventually led Him to Calvary. It was a lot of traveling for a very short payoff, especially since the people He drove to see – unlike my smiling, surprised bride – celebrated Him by killing Him. And yet, if you had asked Jesus, my guess is that He would have said the plan worked out perfectly, too.
Love goes far when love runs deep, and you and I were worth the distance to Jesus. In fact, He wouldn’t have had it any other way, and while I drove 7 hours in a car because I can’t read maps, Jesus made His journey already having counted the cost.
There’s only one explanation for a love like that.
You and I were worth it.
