Our Trip to Chicago and My Dad

This weekend, I drove to Chicago. Alone with my boys.

If you know me in real life, you realize what a crazy big deal that is. I don't even like to drive on the highway an hour away! So, six hours on the turnpike, without Tim...now that's something! (Tim had work obligations, and couldn't join us.) But, I did it...and we survived. Sometimes you have to just pray, trust, and leap! I remember one of the lessons that hit home when my mother was battling cancer had to do with the song I Hope You Dance. The words: Whenever you have the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance were a message for me years ago. So, this weekend, I danced, driving to see my father's house for the first time, also to see my brother for the first time in close to a decade, and to meet with the ladies from The Haven Network. I'll be posting later this week about my visit to The Haven Network, as well as doing a special Chicago-style Traveling Food Fest. So stay tuned!

Tonight as I write this post, emotions and thoughts of family and ministry happenings tumbling around in my mind, I'm not sure where to begin.

Thursday, we left in the morning, beginning the six hour drive to the Chicago area. We stopped in South Bend, Indiana, to see Notre Dame, (Timothy's favorite college football team). He has always loved the movie Rudy, and it remains his favorite. After our visit, I have a hankering to watch some Rudy myself!

And, yes, James is wearing an Ohio State jersey on the Notre Dame campus! =)

We had lunch at the Legends of Notre Dame restaurant. A really cool place, if you're a Notre Dame fan.

We lingered for a couple hours, soaking in the architecture and the atmosphere, snapping pictures, and browsing the bookstore.

We arrived in Geneva a couple hours behind schedule, spent a moment freshening up in my dad's office located on the second floor of a historical red house with yellow trim, and took the short walk to the train station, through the kind of neighborhood you would read about in a book about a summer romance in a quaint town on the lake.. Much to James' delight, we boarded the train for the hour ride to Chicago.

Downtown Chicago

At Navy Pier

I hear they dye this river green on St. Patty's Day. Wouldn't it be fun to see that?

My Dad, smoking his pipe, walking through Chicago. He has smoked a pipe for as long as I can remember.

The boys and I with my Dad...

After our Chicago visit, we drove to my father's home in Rockford, Illinois. We spent the next few days meeting friends, neighbors, and my dad's wife, Carol's side of the family.

This is my handsome brother Colin. On Friday night, we rode with my dad to Milwaukee to pick him up at the airport.

During my visit, we flipped through photo albums filled with pictures I had never seen before.  Like this one of my dad holding me as a baby. I love this one, because he is wearing a fisherman's sweater. Fisherman sweaters always remind me of my Irish dad.

And this one...both of us so young. 

And my grandparents, who both passed away years ago. 

As I turned the pages of the albums, I reflected on the memories. And, the mystery of time and love...of roots and connections and family. We love the best we can. We do the best we can, being the flawed vessels that we are. God is teaching me about love, gently and patiently...freeing, grace-filled love. Have you ever considered that it is no accident the people God places in our lives? Whoever they are and however they stumbled into our lives, we have the opportunity to love them.

The family we know well, the family we know little of, the friends we share laughter and tears with, our neighbors, even those that drive us crazy and push all of our buttons. Even fleeting meetings with random strangers. Every encounter we have is an opportunity to show love and grace to another soul. What if we lived that way? 

He is teaching me. And, I'm trying to learn...slowly and clumsily, like flawed vessels do.