Just keep Walking, Just keep Walking...

I don't know about you, but traveling wears me out.
I love having places to go, and things to do, but I hate the traveling it takes to get there.
It doesn't help that recently I have not had the best luck with traveling.

On my trip to Michigan this summer, I was supposed to drive from Wilmington to Raleigh and then fly from Raleigh to Milwaukee to Grand Rapids. 
My trip went more like this...and this is the short version! :-)

• Stand in line for 2 hours because all the flights for my original airline was canceled.
• Get transferred to a different airline and fly out 2 hours later than originally planned.
• Flew from Raleigh to Washington, DC and then had a 4 hour lay over.
• Flew from DC to Chicago, circled Chicago for an hour and a half due to weather, get redirected to St. Louis.
• Stay on the plane in St. Louis on the tarmac for an hour and a half waiting on the new pilot.  It was 98 degrees outside and the plane had to be turned off since we had to switch pilots (our original pilot hit his maximum number of flying hours for the day). 
• Take off for Chicago and arrive in Chicago about an 2 hours after I was originally scheduled to land in Grand Rapids...and also about 30 minutes after my connecting flight left for Grand Rapids.
• Amy calls to say there is a flight on another airline on the other side of the airport.  Sprint to that side to realize it is a flight to Cedar Rapids and not Grand Rapids (Amy had been calling to try and tell me this)
• Run back across the airport to where the gate actually is and find that the plane is full
• The gate agent offers to try and rebook my for a morning flight.  He gives me 2 options, fly to Traverse City and arrive in Michigan at 10:30am or fly to Grand Rapids and arrive at around 2:30 pm.  I take the Traverse City Option
• Set up a hotel to sleep in for the night, even though at this point, I would have to be back at the airport in 5 hours.  (I had my guitar with me, so I didn't want to sleep in the airport)
• Call the shuttle for the hotel...and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  
• Shuttle finally arrives about an hour and fifteen minutes later.  
• Get to the hotel, and the key card machine is broken,so they have to key us into our rooms.
• Arrive to room and hotel agent keys me in...to find a topless lady (he had just keyed her into that room about 3 minutes earlier)
• Go to get a 2nd room and he keys me in to find that the rain had leaked through the roof and all the plaster from the ceiling had fallen onto the bed and floor.
• Get a 3rd room and he keys in to find that the room is a smoking room and the air conditioning is broken... "I'll take it."
• Get to sleep for about 30 minutes and the fire alarm goes off.  I then stand out in the rain for an hour and find out the hotel was hit by lightening and they were worried about an electrical fire.
• Finally, the let us back into the hotel, but I have to wait outside my door to get keyed into my room.
• I take all my soaking wet clothes and place them on the heater, and turn it on hoping to dry my only set of clothes out in the 45 minutes I get to sleep before the shuttle back to the airport. (my luggage was still checked somewhere)
• Shuttle back to the airport, the driver does not have toll money
• Takes an hour to get through security, but I finally get to my gate...to find my flight is delayed.
• I go to gate to ask for how long and to also ask out of curiosity where in the world my bags are.
• I find out my bags are still going to Grand Rapids, even though I am going to Traverse City.  I asked if they would transfer the bags. "Well sir, since you chose a different final destination, you are responsible for your bags." Me, "Well sir, that is a piece of information that I think last nights gate agent should have told me."
• Go back up to ask if my future brother in law and sister in law can pick up the bags for me...I'm told to "F*** off" by the gate agent.
• Finally get on the plane and get to Traverse City about 16 hours after I was supposed to arrive in Michigan.
• The next day I was finally able to get my luggage from Grand Rapids when I picked my Mom up from the airport

Like I said, that is the short version.  And it doesn't even include my traveling woes on the way home when I slept in Chicago again, despite not having an itinerary that takes me through Chicago.  

It was frustrating.  I hated it.  I was worn out.  I ended up getting Pneumonia, and I think it likely has a lot to do with this trip.

But you know what, I'd take that trip over the trip that Joseph and Mary had to take 2000 years ago.
Luke 2 tells us that Caesar Augustus calls for a census.  Unlike today, where we have folks come to our door for us to fill out the census or we fill out a form, Mary and Joseph had to go to the town of their ancestors...Bethlehem.


Luckily, they most likely would have been traveling in a caravan, but those caravans would have usually traveled 20 miles a day.  Tradition tells us that Mary road on a donkey, but scripture really just says "so Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David."  Both Mary and Joseph probably did a lot of walking.  Joseph most likely walked the whole way.

Can you imagine going to see your grandmother, cousins or other family members and having to walk the whole way?  Imagine having to start walking a week early just to get there on time, but also knowing you are going to have to walk back.  And remember, Mary was pregnant.

I wouldn't want to walk 20 miles a day, and I am a fairly healthy, somewhat in shape (rounds a shape right) young man.  My trip to Michigan wore me out, and I was flying for most of it.  When I didn't fly, I was still in my truck driving, comfortably.  I was shielded from the weather (aside from standing in the rain outside the hotel).
Just imagine how tired Mary and Joseph must have been.

Most of us are going to do some type of traveling this Christmas season.  And if you are like me, most of us will get irritable from all that traveling.

I hope as you are traveling this year, you think about Mary and Joseph, think about the trip they most likely had to endure, and be thankful.  When you sit in traffic this year, pray for the family in the car ahead of you.
When you are tired of your family from being in the car for so long, look around in the car and start praying for your family members.

Use what could be a frustration as a chance to recenter your heart and be thankful for the blessings that God has put in your life!