Day 40: Perfectly Hitched

“Listen to me, Jacob, and Israel, the one called by me: I am he; I am the first, I am also the last. My own hand founded the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summoned them, they stood up together. This is what the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your benefit, who leads you in the way you should go.”Isaiah 48:12–13, 17, emphasis mine

For reasons that now seem less compelling in retrospect, I decided to rent an RV travel trailer and take Missy and my nephew John Michael camping for Fall break this year. Since we all enjoy hiking and biking in the great outdoors, I guess I thought toting a tin shelter behind our very own vehicle would be a great way to immerse ourselves more fully into our adventures. That staying on-site in a remote, wilderness area with a well-earned reputation for black bear activity would be really enjoyable and relaxing.

Of course, once I made that bold decision, I spent more time ordering cute camping paraphernalia—like matching outdoor chairs and darling headlamps and new hiking outfits—from Amazon than I did considering how difficult pulling a two-ton, twenty-one foot RV behind our mid-size SUV on the Interstate during a thunderstorm and high winds was going to be. Nor did I practice making the exaggeratedly wide turns one must master in order to pull such an unwieldy contraption into gas stations without coming perilously close (4 inches to be exact) to crashing into the low cement wall protecting the gasoline tanks. (In my defense, another RV was hogging the bulk of the pull-through lane.)

By the time we got to Big South Fork National Park—3 hours from our house by car, 5 hours when hauling a heavy RV with a rebellious spirit—my hands were cramping from white-knuckling the steering wheel and my nerves felt like they’d been tasered several times. And just when I thought our misadventure couldn’t get any more zany/wacky/emotionally debilitating, we discovered that the camping spot we’d reserved a month earlier—now the only camping spot with RV hookups left for miles and miles around in light of it being peak season for fall leaf peeping—was one that required backing up into from the bottom of a steep hill on a very narrow, single road with steep drop-offs on either side!

How in the world I managed to get that huge thing parked without taking out a big tree (saplings don’t count)—or John Michael who bravely stood in my blind spot and attempted to give me directions—is still a mystery to me. But I can tell you I swaggered a bit while walking to the bathhouse later that evening. That is, after I jumped completely off the ground (a feat I didn’t know I was still capable of) and shrieked loud enough to alert a park ranger because I’m pretty sure I saw a snake in the bushes between our crookedly parked trailer and the communal potties.

But all in all, two nights of complete insomnia (alas, my creaky, middle-aged bones aren’t used to slumbering on an egg-crate “mattress,” much less in our teeny, weeny coffin-like “sleeping alcove”), copious bug bites, and all of the anxiously choreographed midnight and pre-dawn hops to the bathhouse (my bladder seems to be shrinking at the same rate my hair is graying) were totally worth it. Why, you may ask? Because three days after all the somewhat traumatizing fun began—after we hitched everything back up and after John Michael had chivalrously dumped the “black water” (yes, I told him I’d gladly pay for his therapy)—and we started the long journey home, Missy—who seemed to love every, single moment of our misadventure—sighed happily and proclaimed, “Mom, you’re my BFF!” Mother and best friend . . . two titles I don’t deserve but will definitely spend the rest of my life gratefully devoted to being. Even if it means renting a bigger RV next fall.

You’ve probably noticed by now that I often use two titles to refer to God as well: Creator and Redeemer. Although the Bible technically only couples them together once (in the title of Isaiah 48 rsv), they are as firmly hitched in my heart and mind as our SUV and that rolling metal house/bane of my recent existence. Because Creation marks the beginning of human history, which quickly leads—much like a supernatural domino effect—to mankind’s desperate need for redemption. Making “Creator” and “Redeemer” hand-in-glove is miraculous in my estimation, because it shows off the twin facets of a fantastically faithful God, who loves us too much to leave us in the pit we dug ourselves. Or jack-knifed backward up a big hill, as it were.

• How would you explain the connection between God’s titles of Creator and Redeemer?
• How does it encourage you that God didn’t just create the world and then leave it to its own devices after the fall?
• What other titles of God are your favorites? Why?