By April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

It seems like whenever I travel it opens up the world of possibilities for connecting with new people. I spent a few days on a trip to my home state that took me on a journey of meeting some interesting characters. One would think that going out for a funeral wouldn’t be something that would turn into such a great trip, but being out there with my family resulted in fun even in the face of loss.

One morning, just getting a cup of coffee became interesting and took us out of our comfort zone. As I sat outside with my brother for my morning cup of joe compliments of the Econolodge, we met a lady traveling from Colorado to Pacific Palisades, California with her friend. She launched into the story of her friend who was recently divorced and starting a new life at the age of forty-seven. Her friend was about to start attending law school.

There was a group of elderly guardsmen who did the salute for my uncle who passed away as well. Even though my uncle was a marine, the guardsmen saluted his service in such a beautiful way. As I was leaving, I overheard the highest ranked officer tearfully telling one of the family members to teach the little children the importance of what the service men of our country have done. It was touching.

Then, there was the quirky waiter who set up a table for twenty family members at the local Village Inn for breakfast on our final morning. When the largest segment of family didn’t show up (ten large), he told us that clearly the rest of the family hadn’t gotten the memo and so he brought out a memo to show that he had, indeed, gotten the memo. He brightened the day for us, and made the morning shine in spite of the goodbyes that we had to say.

Maybe when I travel, I feel like I’m a little closer to living the way that Jesus must’ve lived. His nomadic way of living made it possible for him to meet a lot of people. For me, the gospels read like a road trip with all kinds of characters and experiences. When I approach life that way, I think of the old saying, “It’s about the journey and not the destination.” In some ways, I think that’s true. We have a journey in life that takes us on all kinds of twists and turns, but those twists and turns often make for a wonderful opportunity to hear stories and tell our own as well.

One doesn’t have to practice the art of good storytelling. It simply takes honesty and

being forthcoming about sharing ourselves with others. Each segment of our journey is a chapter in the story of us, and if God is important to us, He will also be prominent in our story. He doesn’t need to be forced into our story. He just needs to be part of us and then He will also be part of our story.