Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Car Trip (07/18/05)
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TITLE: Seeing Jesus | Previous Challenge Entry
By Robin Hencke
07/23/05 -
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How many times have we heard or even said things just like that?! Just wouldn’t be a car trip without someone complaining. Yet for all of the fussing and griping car trips are some of my fondest memories.
When I was growing up our regular routine was a Saturday after chores or Sunday after church car trip. Most of the time we did not go anywhere in particular. My dad simply took us for a drive in the country. He had grown up in the country and wanted his city kids to experience the less crowded side of life. I took joy in seeing deer, raccoons, opossums, and other woodland creatures that aren’t prominent in town.
Our family journeys began with Mother packing a picnic lunch (sometimes Dad would splurge and we would get a bucket of chicken and biscuits) and then our family of eight piling in the station wagon.
Ahhh the station wagon, it was quite a vehicle. It had three rows of seats; the third one faced looking out the back windshield. I knew I was growing up when allowed to sit in the third seat. As the youngest of the six children I had the dubious honor, distinction of being stuck well um sitting up front in the middle between my parents. It never seemed fair. Whoever said the youngest child is always the spoiled one didn’t know my family!
Although the family car trips were special there was one extraordinary venture.
Being a one-income family we didn’t always have the money to buy a pumpkin for a Halloween Jack-o-Lantern. There was, however, an alternative, a relative of the watermelon called a citron melon. A citron melon is big and rounded like a pumpkin but colored like a watermelon. A citron melon is turned into a Jack-o-Lantern the same as a pumpkin. You cut an opening out of the top so you can scoop out the seeds, carve the face then put in a candle so the face will glow.
In order to acquire a citron melon you have to go to a citrus grove. You may be wondering why you would find a citron melon in a citrus grove when it is a relative of the watermelon. I have often wondered the same. I do not have an answer except that is where I know them to grow.
It goes without saying that Florida has an abundance of citrus groves. Finding a citrus grove, easy task. Finding the right citron melon, not such an easy task. The citrus growers looked on the citron melons as a nuisance and would take a machete to them. It could take a long time to find the right size and shape that had not been hacked. It got tiring, but well worth it when the perfect one appeared.
The extraordinary venture to citron melon hunt happened when I was three years old.
It was an after church on Sunday outing. I do not recall if we drove for a short or long time to reach our destination, I only know, like many children, I fell asleep on the way. At some point while my dad and siblings were citron melon hunting I awoke. My mother had stayed with me while I slept; upon awaking I told her I could see Jesus. She asked me where. I pointed to a tree and told her He was under that tree.
As the years have passed into adulthood the routine car trips have gone by the wayside. I still see Jesus in creation, but I have not seen Him under any more trees. I hope when I get to heaven I will have this memory and will be able to share with Jesus how special it is to me.
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