Lessons learned in the passenger’s seat

I’m not supposed to be here. Hot. Sweating profusely, in fact. Ready to throw up or faint, but not sure which way it’s going to go. My head is spinning. Emotions going haywire. All I want to do is yell, “stop!” 

And then move back into the driver’s seat, where I am in control. Comfortable. Where the air-condition vents are set just right, all trained on me. Where I know how to protect my daughter, how to navigate the streets and find our way back to the safety of home.

From the beginning of our daughter’s precious existence, I had prepped my husband for this task:  teaching Kendall how to drive. I would take care of potty-training, manners, study habits, building character, dating instructions, and a myriad of other tasks, both the everyday moments as well as the more momentous lessons. But I really, really, really didn’t want to have to teach her to drive.

On a very hot day a couple summers ago, when Kendall was taking the desk portion of behind the wheel, she asked if I could take her to the church parking lot so she could try out some of the processes she was learning. I hemmed and hawed. I tried to find a good excuse to put it off until my husband could take her. 

But alas! I gave in because I thought, maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe I’m just overthinking it, and it will be something we all laugh about later. How silly that I was so afraid! Perhaps I’ll even be good at it. Who knows? Anything is possible, right?

Turns out, I was wrong. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was worse. It’s not that Kendall was a bad driver. She was just a normal teenager sitting behind the wheel for the first time. Trying to get used to the feel of using only her right foot to activate both the brake and the accelerator. 

And naturally, confusing one for the other in the particularly hairy incident I documented earlier. One wouldn’t think you could do much harm in a huge, empty parking lot by only going a few miles an hour, but imagine the damage to this mother’s nerves as we careened backwards, heading directly toward the nearest tree. 

I. Was. Helpless! I could do nothing. She was about to crash into a tree, and I was trying not to panic because I’m usually quite calm and didn’t want to scar my sensitive, super-conscientious child for life. I called out, trying as hard as I could to sound encouraging and not condemning:  “Brake! Brake! Brake!”

Over the course of the next couple years, my terrified trifecta of “Brake! Brake! Brake!” softened to a more reasonable, “You need to stop. Go ahead and stop now.” And finally, to a mere sound – more of a cheerful little chirp, really – “urch!” (Kinda like the sound you make when reading to toddlers about the noises cars make when they stop? Yeah, like that.) 

Pretty soon, Kendall would judge herself on how well she drove that day by how many “urch”es she elicited from me as I sat all coiled up, wound tight as a brand-new spring in the passenger’s seat. “Mom, I only got one ‘urch’ today! It was a good day!”

(I must stop here to give props to my husband, who, after that fateful afternoon in the church parking lot, has done a wonderful job teaching her to drive. Once she became comfortable enough driving, she began driving me around in order to accrue the rest of her daytime hours. And my husband faithfully went out at night to teach her nighttime driving as well. Job well done, my dear!)

The other day, I was sharing this with a friend whose daughter recently got her license. We were talking about college and career options for our daughters (who are now rising high-school seniors – sniff, sniff). How we couldn’t see them walking around college campuses and spreading their wings without us right there, playing our roles in the exact same way we always have. 

So we were pondering this new stage of life and the uncertainties it brings, and I was just hit with this revelation that a few years ago, we couldn’t even imagine our little girls driving. It was unfathomable to us how our burgeoning artists who would rather craft and create than anything else would be able to operate a motor vehicle. 

And yet – here we are. Riding in the passenger’s seat in our vehicles as our girls chauffeur us around. Kendall finished up her daytime driving hours by driving us to and from school a number of times. Meandering around those tall trees. Passing by the pretty little water feature in front of that office building, oohhing and aahhing over the goose family taking its morning walk. Carefully assessing when it was our turn to cross that busy road. 

There have been twists and turns. Traffic to navigate. Impatient people passing us, then needing us to let them back in when their lane ended. Orange roadwork cones to drive around. Changing traffic patterns. Afternoon sun glare that no car’s visor can accurately reach. And then there’s the home stretch, where I typically get a bit more relaxed. Home is so close we can both feel it.

One afternoon as I stretched out in that passenger’s seat, I realized something. These driving hours that our kids must complete before getting their licenses aren’t just for them to gain valuable experience (though that is the main goal). One of the perks of these hours for parents is that we get to learn that our kids are ready for this. 

That one day (soon!), we won’t be leaving fingernail marks on the inside passenger’s door handles as we scratch and claw at them in terror while our kids drive. One day (soon!), we will relax and enjoy being driven around, not having to always be in control. We parents, seasoned drivers though we may be, still have a lesson or two to learn about trust. In our own children, yes, but also in our God. 

Our family was reading through the book of Acts a couple months ago at dinnertime (one chapter a night, along with our church), and something really stood out to me. I’ve been pondering it since. It is found in Acts 8:4. The early church is being persecuted. Stephen has just been martyred, and Saul is going around, putting believers in prison, trying to destroy the church.

We are told in verse 1 that all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. And I hate the thought of this unified people being torn apart and scattered. But in verse 4, we’re told that those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

And I thought, wow! These believers, uprooted from their homes and their churches or fellow believers, are really trusting in God here. Things are scary for them. Circumstances are hard. They don’t know what’s coming next, but it must have seemed like whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. 

How do I know this? Because we are told that wherever they were scattered – or perhaps in their minds, wherever they had been placed by God – they were preaching God’s Word. They were telling others about this Jesus who had fulfilled the prophecies and changed their lives. 

See, these early believers had been in Jerusalem, and that is likely where they would have wanted to be. It was the place to be for many reasons, but then they were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria because of persecution. Their lives were upended, and yet they trusted God enough that they were willing to serve God even in these places they probably didn’t want to be.

Here is something really cool. In Acts 1, Jesus speaks to His apostles before He ascends into heaven, and He tells them:  It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (vs. 7-8).

Did you catch that? He mentions Jerusalem, but He also tells them that they will be His witnesses in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. The significance of this, for me, is that Jesus knew that in order for the gospel message to spread, believers had to be scattered. It would only spread by word of mouth, and that could only happen (at that time, of course) in person.

And He also would have known how uncertain His followers would have felt in being scattered, in being driven from their homes. How terrifying it would be to feel so out of control, so out of the driver’s seat of their own lives – if you’ll allow me to phrase it that way. They had to remember who was in control, who was guiding their lives and using them in a greater way than they would have even realized at that time.

Life in the passenger’s seat can be tough. It can be messy. We may sweat a little (or a lot!). We may grieve the loss of control and the uncertainty that comes along with it. There are twists and turns. Changing traffic patterns. Roadblocks and detours. But what changes everything is learning that we can trust the Driver.

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge (Psalm 62:8).