Finding Peace on Highway 49

What if I could trust the Father the way my children trusted me?

“Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” — Mark 4:41b

Gripping the Wheel

To this day, it ranks as one of the very worst storms I’ve encountered. At the time, my family lived in Greenwood, Mississippi, about an hour north of my in-law’s home near Yazoo City. After visiting them for the day, we drove back to Greenwood up Highway 49, a rural, two-lane road that travels through the flat and fertile soil of the sparsely populated Mississippi Delta. My wife and I were sitting in the front with our three children side-by-side on the back row of the minivan.

Soon it began to rain. Not your ordinary rain, but the kind where wipers on high do little to clear the water off the windshield. It was like driving through a waterfall. Straight-line winds began blowing so hard, I thought we might get blown off the road. It was dark and there wasn’t a shoulder on the highway — only ditches on either side.

Although I could barely make out the yellow lines separating the two lanes, we pressed on in the darkness, with my hands clutching the steering wheel as tightly as I could.