A Little Story About a Family Road Trip
A week ago today, our family took off for our first The Beauty Chasers tour road trip. We loaded up the old Rover with some duffle bags, books, and tasty snacks then hit the road. We drove through NC, SC, GA, AL, MI, LA, TX, OK, AK, and TN. Ten states total.
I reminded the pixies they had just seen 1/5 of the United States. They were delighted.
Our journey was not without excitement. Somewhere close to Jackson, MI, just as night was falling and we were nearing our hotel for the evening, our phones loudly vibrated a Blue Alert: officer down, suspect armed and dangerous.
The county under high alert was the county we were currently driving through. I have never passed so many police cars on a stretch of highway. The pull-offs were littered with cop cars, lights flashing. We passed officers along the road searching the swamps with flashlights.
It was a bit traumatic for my youngest pixies. When we pulled into our hotel that evening, the fugitive had not yet been caught. Zion came over in the middle of the night from her own bed to crawl into mine.
She just needed the nearness of her mama.
I felt her reach out several times in the middle of the night just to make sure I was still nearby. My heart warmed at the comfort her touch brought.
It made me think of our Heavenly Father. How He longs for us to draw near to Him. To reach out our hand to just touch and see He is near.
He delights in us drawing near. He wants us to draw near.
We woke the next morning to find the suspect had been caught. But I still felt Zion longing for my presence more than usual throughout the day.
We made it to College Station, TX on Friday evening where we held a Beauty Chat at our friend @cloisteredaway’s. The night was rich with conversation and centered around beauty.
Why beauty matters. How beauty can change you. Where beauty begins.
Our journey into Beauty as a family began years ago. Living in England while Tim studied beauty in the works of C.S. Lewis for his PhD was revelatory. His studies became our conversations. They etched their fingerprints upon the very fibre of our being.
Our family has since sought wonder and adventure in the beautiful. It’s all around us, if we look for it.
Hence, when we left College Station, and found out we were driving right past Waco, TX on our way to OKC, we knew we had to pull over and chase some beauty at Magnolia.
The pixies loved every moment.
We had our second Beauty chat at our friend @ttownjay and his lovely wife @thenancymack. We sat until the midnight hours gathered around delicious food and rich conversation. Jay convinced us to take the long way home, and so we did.
Route 66 in Oklahoma. A bit of a tribute to a bygone era, but full of charm.
When we finally landed back in Charlotte late Monday night, our hearts were full. Full of hope, full of wonder, full of anticipation for all that is to come.
My husband writes about Beauty,
“Our world is in desperate need of a people who will live as if Beauty matters. It is exactly our grasp and love of beauty that not only keeps us human, but draws us to the heart of God.”
I’m reaching for the heart of God, my friend, just like Zion reached for me that night in bed.
And maybe in my drawing near, Beauty will draw near to me.
If you’d like to Pre-Order The Beauty Chasers, which releases this Tuesday, June 21, you’ll also get Tim’s course, “The Ways of Wonder” for free!
I’ve been sharing our road trip journeys on IG, so if you’d like to follow along on our book tours, I’d love to have you follow me at @splintersong. The best is yet to come, my friends.