This week marked a huge milestone in parenting and faith. The Georgia Department of Motor Services determined that our elder daughter qualified for her driver’s license, and immediately bestowed said license upon her after her driving exam. All the things I had been told about how fast they grow up have been true as we’ve reached each milestone. Despite the start of her junior year in high school a few weeks ago, I really didn’t realize that she’s almost grown up (at least enough to head off to college in two years) until I had to process the fact that she is now a driver and what that means!  

While Donna and I dealt with our nerves differently on Monday morning, we were both anxious as we sent our new driver off to school, in a thunderstorm, with her little sister in the passenger seat. Boy, there’s no preparing for that moment! We were “watching” the progress with GPS phone locations as they made their way, and we had asked our younger daughter to send us progress texts as they made the major turns. That morning commute is about the worst driving I do on a regular basis (“used” to do, now). It’s intense from the start with the dreaded left turn onto Frederica Road, and then the mess at the end of the causeway, the turns onto Gloucester and Lanier, and the zoo that is Glynn Academy as students arrive. But today was day three; all has been well.

I realize my parents did this in the days before cell phones and GPS tracking. I know a little bit more about how my Homecoming date’s parents must have felt when I passed my driving test and got my license. Homecoming was that very night and I picked up my date after my first solo drive to her house (in those days we didn’t have restrictions on driving with other teenagers for the first six months like they do now). My Lord. I’m sure there was some praying going on in that house! I know how much was going on in ours, but at least we know our daughter’s skills and responsibility. I was a stranger to them. God is good, and there were no problems.

The start of driving is also a test of faith. Do we really believe what we say about God going with us, and entrusting our loved ones to God’s never-failing care? God’s not a heavenly air bag who will step in and prevent an accident, but I have certainly called for some guardian angels to fly with that car!  We used to take angels with us every time we left the domain in Sewanee, and I did the same thing this summer – I took an angel with me when I left the gates (you release them at the gates on the way in, to have a little angel me-time, and then take them back when you leave by tapping your roof…). I asked my angel to follow a different car, and as far as I know he did (I don’t know, but I have strong sense he’s a he).  

I lost a teenage family member behind the wheel in a car accident when I was a teenager. I know others who have lost children in car accidents. It happens. And it leaves an impression on us. That’s where that fear for the safety of our children comes into play. And it’s the sort of fear I don’t feel very often. Many of us have had our own traffic accidents, though they are blessedly and rarely that severe. The act of leaving the house every day is an act of faith because anything can happen, from a falling tree limb, to a rabid cat, to a stroke, or all sorts of terrifying things. We don’t live in fear though; we go about in the world as best we can, letting God handle as much of it as possible. We do the same whenever we let our kids out of the house, especially these days, when we see terrible things like school shootings. We have to trust in the overall orderliness and goodness of the world we inhabit. We prepare for what we can, and then off we go.

I have to trust that my child has done the work and is prepared to drive. I have to trust that other drivers are equally attentive to safety. And I have to trust that God will be along for the ride, literally and figuratively, whatever comes. But please, kid, don’t drive faster than your angel can fly, just in case!

Tom+

O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel in particular new drivers; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey's end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Photo Credits:  Car keys via Dreamstime.com subscription; Sewanee Gates, © Sewanee, found at https://new.sewanee.edu/career-readiness/beyond-the-gates/