Blonde on the prairie

By Jodi Rae Ingstad 

As I’m writing this it’s the day of love, Valentine’s Day. I rolled out of bed after saying good morning to the Lord. He’s the only one in my room in the morning since that husband of mine escapes to work sometime in the middle of my dreaming. Plus that huge Jesus painting in our room just compels me to greet Him.
I sat down with my coffee to assess our relationship. One should inventory a relationship at least once a year.  
When assessing a relationship one must be so honestly pure that you might actually feel your body shutter in pain over your shortcomings.
When God made me he turned the power button on high.  My neurons are constantly firing. I process every single thing to its infinity and I’m not entirely sure that’s even possible. I am the champion of thinking ahead about every little situation that may arise but probably won’t.  Vacation planning is an especially fruitful time for my brain. I pack enough for spring, summer, winter, autumn and any hurricane, tornado, snowstorm, earthquake, locust swarm or other natural disaster that may occur but probably won’t. Once we’re finally in the vehicle traveling to our destination I pre-determine how I’m going to drive diagonally into the ditch if an out-of-control vehicle is headed towards me.  I pre-plan an escape route out of the hotel should there be a fire. I bring two tweezers with in case I lose one and I have a fly away eyebrow hair. Planning for everything- It’s my vice. My inner voice sounds something like this, “AAAAAAAaahhhh!”
Husband on the other hand lives entirely in the moment. He floats through the day with no worries or cares. He lives so peacefully and I live so, well—not peacefully. His inner voice sounds something like this, “La, la, la, la, la.”
The Jesus I greet each morning pre-plans like I do. He must because He put us together knowing it would serve a purpose. Husband is the eye to my hurricane, (except for the times when he is the hurricane! Having an eye during a hurricane is a pretty special thing to possess!  He puts all of my neurons calmly back into perspective.
I learned about perspective rather unexpectedly yesterday. I told you the 4 wheel drive is not working on our pickup truck.  If I try to drive forward up our slanted driveway I get stuck every time.  For a week and a half I’ve been driving up our quarter mile long driveway in reverse. The truck works great in reverse. A quarter mile is a long way to drive while twisting your neck to steer backwards. Tired of a strained neck I began using my rear view mirror to guide me up our driveway path.  
Perspective was the one thing I hadn’t pre-planned for this day.  When it hit me I felt overwhelming fear at first.
For the length of our marriage we’ve always driven up the driveway in forward. There is a feeling of accomplishment and hope when you are gaining momentum and moving towards something.
While I was driving backwards down our driveway looking in the rear view mirror for guidance everything appeared to be leaving me. I felt time passing and the horizon off our prairie meadow hill shrinking. The things I love, our cottage, the trees and the view from our hill were disappearing as the wheels rolled backwards.
I put my foot on the brake and just sat there in the failing truck too stunned to move.
It was Jesus who purposefully made the 4 wheel drive fail.  He knew I’d drive myself out backwards before remaining stranded. He knew by teaching me perspective that I’d understand that this husband of mine (the one that drives me nuts) is the same husband that drives me forward.  He’s the best gift I could have ever received on Valentine’s Day or any day.
Jodi Rae Ingstad can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it