Day 6 Trucks assigned, I parted company with my mechanically-gifted husband,a source of knowledge and encouragement. Truck mates Cowboy Casanova, Whiny Steve, and I tackled our pre-trip check. Like my early sailing days, I attempted to integrate technical terms with their functions. While differentiating between the fuel pump, alternator, and water pump, today’s instructor, Captain Kirk, gathered the class. I shivered from cold and nerves as he demonstrated flying and landing maneuvers. Can he beam me to a warm, stress-free tropical island?
Kirk drove each group around the yard in the bobtail, shifting gears like a spoon through pudding. How humbling when we novices slid behind the wheel. Bucking like a bronco, it was mostly grinding and groaning as we double-clutched. Later we discovered the joys of backing an eighteen-wheeler between four sets of cones. My teeth clenched halfway back as the trailer veered off course, annihilating a cone. Eventually I performed two straight-backs within parameters, but exuberance was squashed, along with more pointy obstacles, once Kirk departed, leaving these words of wisdom in his wake: “Just relax and have fun.”
Trucking school is an alien planet! Give me a skeleton and I can name all the bones, muscles that attach, plus how they move as I’ve worked in Physical Therapy for over thirty years. Here I feel adrift on a raging sea with torn sails. Thankfully, God is my anchor and safe harbor. After a nutritious evening meal of corn dogs and fries followed by a side of indigestion, we retreated to our holding cell. Following more entertaining hours of study, I opened my Bible to Matthew 11:28. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I slept soundly, trusting in the Lord’s plan.
Day 7 My floundering ego capsized with two outrageous parking maneuvers: the blind-sided parallel and the alley dock. Hope sunk quickly as emotions swung out of control like an untethered boom in tumultuous seas. Standing in below-freezing temperatures, my mind was as frozen as my fingers and toes. Granted a Snow-Day afternoon, Jerry and I connected with a faith-abiding couple and prayed for perseverance. We were reminded that trials can bring our greatest mercies, allowing us to draw closer to God for strength and discovering His plans. I am so lost and await direction.
Day 8 Our breakfast entree, “Techniques for executing turns without running over anything” included apexes, reference points, tandem placement, formulating plans, and calculating the truck’s position. Oh, and catching vehicles sneaking between us and the curb. Ouch! After lunch, prayer, and meditation, we were scheduled to drive Route 1. Our bearish instructor, the Drill Sargent, barked orders and growled at our ineptitude. During my forty-five minutes of shame at the wheel, I frantically grinded through gears, the tachometer swinging wildly, straining to recall distance formulas, swerving around corners and cars. Suddenly I was on the freeway! Our rig returned intact and I praised God for another miracle. Tonight only three hours of homework and then this inspirational verse: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34. That’s the truth!
Day 9 The day began with a video about diesel fuel and how to become a human torch. At a crossroads, I consulted God’s GPS. It pointed me down an unexpected avenue. I resign, jettisoning this massive load of deteriorating physical and emotional health before my vessel capsized. By the following day six additional classmates had been terminated. The remaining ten, all with previous trucking experience, see graduation day. Fortunately, Jerry was among them.
“Each act of surrender prepares us to trust God with even bigger surrenders that may be required down the road.” Nancy Leigh DeMoss, “The Quiet Place”.
Surrendering control, bit by bit, I began to see the path God desired for me. It was not trucking the highways of America. Within days of leaving “Survival School” I was called to California to assist my dad. As my stepmom declined in a nursing home, he struggled with anxiety and depression, neglecting his own care. Months later we became legal guardians of our teenage granddaughter. That’s another story, but it meant providing a stable, permanent home, something we could not have done from an eighteen-wheeler. After Mary passed, came another tough decision to relocate Dad to Indiana. We built a studio apartment for him on our property and became his caregivers as he battled Alzheimer’s.
God had a much grander plan for us than cruising tandem cross-country. Through those trials our family grew closer and bonds of love were strengthened. Thankfully I listened, obeyed, and followed His road, not mine.
The Winds of Fate One ship drives east and another drives west With the selfsame winds that blow 'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales Which tell us the way to go Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate As we voyage along through life 'Tis the set of a soul that decides its goal And not the calm or the strife Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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