Disabling Reverse

Dad was the one charged with the dreaded parental responsibility of teaching me how to drive. Combining this task with his lack of patience did not create an ideal combination! He spent lots of time teaching me the aspects of defensive driving. I can still hear him saying, “You always want to anticipate a mistake that a nearby driver might make and compensate for it. Always be on the look-out for ill-equipped drivers.” I learned that skill quite well, but reverse always gave me trouble. When getting my driver’s license, the assessor asked me to back into a parking space, of which I did a pathetic job. I somehow managed to perfectly straddle the white lines instead of landing my car in between them! I think he had a soft heart because it was my 16th birthday, so he gave me my driver’s license anyway as a gift of pity. Dad always joked that he gave me one month before I had my first wreck. And I did not disappoint. A few weeks after turning 16, he was called away from the pulpit on a Wednesday night right before church. He was informed that I had backed into another car in the McDonald’s parking lot. Yes, reverse had gotten me into some trouble. 

Throughout the years, Mom and Dad have always made it a priority to spend time with my kids. Mallory and Drew have grown to depend on both of them for support. Some of their favorite times is listening to their “Popman” tell stories and giving them words of wisdom. Mallory will graduate high school this year. With the entire world in front of her, she has many life decisions at her fingertips. We all remember the pressure that this entails. As she often does, she called up Popman to take her to dinner for a free counseling session. As the dinner unfolded, Mallory discussed with Dad all her options of college choices, extra-curricular opportunities, future desires, and fears. As always, the Baptist Rabbi had words for her to cling to in the upcoming days. He encouraged her to listen to her desires and what God was speaking to her. He explicitly told her that when she made a decision, she needed to move full steam forward with all her heart and soul. He told her that there would be times that she would be tempted to play the “what if” game and wonder what her journey would be like if she would have chosen another path. He emphatically told her to never look back once she made her decision. He told her that life is full of experiences and missed opportunities. Sometimes we will make the right choices and sometimes we will regret the decisions that we made. But all experiences are worthwhile if we learn from it - even the bad ones. However, if we focus on what could have been or what we would have done differently, it can consume our lives and keep us from profiting from the present. He encouraged her to spend great time in thought and prayer making the best decision she can make with the information she has at this time. Then don’t look back. Don’t give the past any power.

I would like to say that my skill of driving in reverse has gotten better over the years, but it simply hasn’t. My family still makes fun of me trying to back out of the driveway trying to avoid our brick wall. But maybe there is a reason. Maybe it is because it is deep seated in me that there is not power in going backwards.  What we have passed and encountered is behind us. There is much more peace and comfort in looking ahead and driving forward. But in driving forward, we must remember our defensive driving skills. For there are crazy drivers out there. We must think ahead, anticipate potential catastrophes, and adjust our moves based on other’s decisions. We must make the best decision with the information presented around us. Unfortunately, we will still sometimes crash. But the good news is cars spend much more time in the forward gear than in reverse. There is positive power in limiting the amount of time we spend in reverse.