When my kids were small they had this dream vacation – a fantasy, really. It went like this: we (the family) would pack up the car with the basics – sleeping bags, snacks, stuffed animals and a few clothes – and hit the open road. We would then take a random north or south route on a major interstate, watching traffic with keen precision; well, not the traffic, actually, but the cars that made up the traffic. We would try to find a family similar to ours with kids around the same age as ours and then we would……follow them! 
We never actually took that trip, but I sometimes wonder how it would have played out if we had. We MAY have ended up at a Six Flags Over Somewhere, or we may have just as likely ended up at….a health clinic….a loan office….or social services. (I can hear my youngest saying, “Way to kill the dream, Mom!”) But if we really had followed a random family, on a random day in their lives, we really don’t know where we may have ended up. It could have been Disneyland. But most likely…not.
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry I have a feeling that his followers were leaning toward, “Let’s pack up the donkey, follow Jesus and see where we end up! No idea where we’re goin’ but it’s gonna be awesome!” 
And it was…..for awhile. Then it got uncomfortable…and dangerous…and disheartening…and really, really hard.
These are the things running through my mind at the beginning of this blogging journey through Lent. I’m excited to see where it will lead, but I am also aware that there may be some things I don’t really want to face. It could even get really hard. But I trust in the power of the resurrection enough to “follow that car,” knowing that wherever I end up, it will be worth it.
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.'”
Isaiah 30:21
