Carpenter’s Corner: The perfect fit with Dean Kellio

I pushed on the heavy glass revolving doors and quickly stepped into the space created as they turned us slowly out into ninety degree Portland weath­er. Elise was patiently waiting curbside as my wife and I car­ried our carry-on bags atop our roller equipped suitcases.

The car was completely packed. My daughter had fol­lowed my instructions to the last detail. Everything had been neatly and perfectly packed in­to the Japanese commuter car I had asked her to rent for our trip.

“Please get an economy car, with a back-up camera that will get at least thirty-five to forty miles per gallon.” I remembered saying to Elise, a week before our arrival, as she continued to beg for a slightly larger vehicle.

The traffic in the arrival area wasn’t too bad today but the suitcases, my wife insisted we pack for our short five day trip, didn’t want to fit into the trunk. While the cars continued to pile up behind us I continued to push until my wife’s suitcase conceded, folding up into a space that was several times too small for it.

Sometimes, no most of the time, I tend to be a bit on the cheap side not thinking things through to their final conclu­sion or cost. Instead of mak­ing reservations at motels, like Elise had suggested, I decided that camping in Washington’s State Park system would be a better choice chock full of fam­ily bonding experiences.

My grandson smiled at me from his car seat as I continued trying to stuff my backpack in on top of the ice chest that consumed all the space next to him. I had to push and compress it to get it in past the open door where upon arrival it immedi­ately expanded to fill the entire space to the roof.

My wife was right again as she wagged her finger at me insisting “You just do not think things through, next time I will be making all the reservations.”

I chivalrously opened the se­dan’s front passenger door for her then humbly crammed my­self into the space left over next to my grandson’s car seat. It was a tight fit so I maneuvered a pil­low in-between my left arm and his car seat.

“At least we have a back-up camera” I thought proudly to myself as Elise pressed the ac­celerator pedal to the floor and our adventure began to acceler­ate towards our final destination. “After all, it was only a five hour drive to Port Townsend, right?”

Sometimes our lives can re­semble a car which has been crammed with so many things that we lose sight of our pur­pose and at times our destina­tion. We aimlessly drive on not fully understanding what we were put on earth to accomplish. Relationships end up taking the backseat while allowing our cir­cumstances to overwhelm us.

Remember that it is the people in our lives, the relation­ships that we make that should take the front seat as we travel though life. The baggage we carry with us will always be there, never having enough space or time to get it complete­ly packed away. There are times, when we get ourselves into a tight place, where we need to use our back-up camera to get out of situations that so easily entangle us and consume our time.

Being part of another person’s life, the relationships we have with them, are the only things that will be traveling with us as we take our final adventure into eternity. Our last road trip will come to an end as we arrive at our Father’s house.

Upon our arrival there will not be a trailer packed full of material things traveling be­hind us. There will not be a list of things to do to consume our time; instead we will have the perfect fit into a community of faith filled people where this world’s system will no longer dictate how we spend our time.

So don’t be on the cheap side when it comes to relationships and divine appointments.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:4-10.