It’s Thursday and we are frantically running around trying to get ready to leave town tonight. We are flying the red eye to Atlanta! Yes we get to spend this long Labor Day weekend with a few hundred other folks at Young Life’s Sharp Top Cove. Its family camp and we get the privilege of sharing some thoughts about growing a family in today’s culture. As I hang up my cell phone and switch over from Facebook to write a new blog using Microsoft Word I’m reminded how appropriate the theme for this weekend’s camp is – Unplugged! Boy, do we all need to learn a little discipline when it comes to technology and learn to unplug on occasion; but that’s a conversation for another time (or should I say another blog).

As disruptive as it is to go on the road, our family loves road trips or even, as is the case this time, air trips. We have spent a lot of time in our vans driving to and from Young Life camps, sporting events, and visiting family. Most recently we’ve spent time on Interstate 5 heading to Palo Alto to watch Tavita play football. We won’t have any more of those particular trips since he has graduated. But what great memories we have of driving through the night after watching Tana play high school football on Friday night hustling to finish the twelve hour drive to catch the kickoff of Stanford’s game. Whew – it makes me tired thinking about it again. Certainly our most memorable road trip was this past Christmas break. The Stanford Cardinal had earned a spot in the Sun Bowl held in El Paso, Texas. And yes we drove the 2000 mile, 30 hour trip together as a family. We loaded up our 12 passenger van pulling a small trailer and hit the road. We did stop in Palo Alto to celebrate Christmas with all of the kids before the Cardinal football team headed for El Paso. Then we reloaded the van and headed for Phoenix. The body of Christ and the Young Life family was so amazing, providing us with places to stay all along the way. After hanging out in sunny Phoenix for a couple of days with our friends the Worcesters, we once again loaded our van and drove the final seven hours to El Paso. In all we spent over 30 hours in the van getting to El Paso. What a sweet time together, but it also put to the test all the parenting principles we teach. Kids were tired, the van was cramped and we were in strange surroundings.

Family and friends gather with our "Tavita" shirts to cheer on our team!

We’ve done plenty of things as parents we wish we could do over, but one of the principles we are thankful we emphasized is that of being nice. Our kids have heard us over and over again say something along the lines of, “you aren’t going to go out there and be wonderful to your friends and strangers and then come home and be awful to those in your family.” Philippians 4:5 says; Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. According to Jesus the greatest commandment was to love God and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. Could he possibly be asking us to treat our neighbor with gentleness and our brother and sister with harshness? Of course not! Always make it a priority that kindness and gentleness begins in the home with the people God has placed in your family (and by the way that includes the parents!). Then if you ever have to spend 60 hours (we did drive home) together in a van it can be a wonderful memory rather than a nightmare.