Where We’ve Seen God in Our First Four Months on the Road
Finding His light in the mountains, the hard days, the people, and the moments we never could have planned
When we decided to spend a year traveling around the country with our three kids, we knew we were going to see some incredible things.
We knew we'd see mountains.
National parks.
Deserts.
Wildlife.
Sunrises.
Places Jessie and I had wanted to see for years.
And I knew there would be moments when we would stand somewhere beautiful and be reminded of God's creation.
There have been plenty of those.
Standing at the Grand Canyon makes it pretty difficult not to feel small.
Watching the Tetons rise above the lakes is incredible.
Seeing the strange colors of Yellowstone's hot springs, the hoodoos of Bryce, or the massive walls surrounding us in Zion has repeatedly made me stop and think:
How amazing is it that God created all of this?
But four months into this trip, I've realized something.
Those aren't necessarily the moments when I've felt God's presence the most.
I've seen Him in the mountains.
But I've also seen Him in our kids.
In our marriage.
In friends showing up.
In family driving across states to meet us.
In plans that didn't work.
In hard days.
In quiet mornings.
And in little moments that would have been incredibly easy to miss if we were moving too fast.
Looking back at these first four months, I can see God's light shining through this trip in ways I didn't know to look for when we left home.
We See Him in Creation
This is probably the obvious one.
We've spent the last four months surrounded by some of the most incredible landscapes in the country.
And there have been moments when pictures simply couldn't capture what was in front of us.
The Grand Canyon.
Zion.
Bryce.
Arches.
Rocky Mountain.
Grand Teton.
Yellowstone.
And now Glacier.
Every park has been completely different.
That's one of the things that amazes me most.
God didn't make one beautiful landscape and repeat it over and over.
He created desert arches.
Deep canyons.
Jagged mountains.
Alpine lakes.
Waterfalls.
Forests.
Geysers.
Wildlife.
Places that look so different from each other that it's hard to believe they're all part of the same country.
There have been plenty of times when we've stood somewhere and simply looked around.
This didn't happen because we made it beautiful.
We just get the privilege of being here to see it.
We See Him Through Our Kids
I expected to show our kids God's creation on this trip.
I didn't expect how often they would show it back to me.
Kids notice things differently.
They stop for animals.
Rocks.
Water.
Trees.
Flowers.
Things Jessie and I might walk right past.
They get excited about seeing a bison.
Catching a fish.
Building a campfire.
Watching the sun go down.
And sometimes their excitement reminds me to stop trying to get to the next thing and actually look at what's right in front of us.
There have also been moments when we've watched them do something hard.
Hudson hiking into the Grand Canyon with Jessie.
Learning to fly fish.
All three kids walking farther than they thought they could.
Trying something that scared them.
Those moments remind me that we're not only showing our kids the country.
We're watching God shape the people they're becoming.
We See Him in the People Who Have Met Us Along the Way
Some of the brightest parts of this trip have had nothing to do with national parks.
They've been people.
Barrie and Keri coming to Zion.
Spending time with longtime friends in Fort Collins and then continuing part of the road trip together.
Mom and Dad coming to Yellowstone.
Aunt Tracy.
And Shelby making that long drive to surprise the kids.
I'll never forget them opening the car door and realizing she was there.
“SHELBY!”
The hugs.
The excitement.
Four months apart disappearing instantly.
When we planned this trip, I spent hours planning routes and campgrounds.
I couldn't plan moments like that.
And yet some of those have become the moments I treasure most.
God has reminded me over and over that this year isn't only about the places we're going.
It's about the people He's put into our lives.
We See Him When the Plan Changes
I love a plan.
That has been well established by this point.
But this trip has repeatedly reminded me that my plan isn't always the best one.
The shuttle has a 90-minute wait.
The weather changes.
The kids are tired.
A campground isn't what we expected.
A trail doesn't happen.
We have to change directions.
And then sometimes the thing that happened instead becomes better than what I planned.
I'm learning to hold the itinerary a little more loosely.
That's not always easy for me.
But there's been something freeing about realizing that we don't have to control every detail for something good to come from the day.
Sometimes the detour is where the memory happens.
We See Him in the Hard Days Too
Not every day of this trip has been beautiful.
Five people living in a motorhome is still five people living in a motorhome.
We get tired.
The kids argue.
Jessie and I get frustrated.
Plans fall apart.
Things break.
There are days when traveling feels like work.
There are days when I'm homesick.
There are days when nobody wants another adventure.
And faith doesn't mean pretending those days aren't real.
If anything, those are some of the days when we need God the most.
We're learning patience.
Grace.
How to forgive each other quickly when there's nowhere else to go.
How to slow down.
How to be thankful when the day doesn't look anything like the picture-perfect version of this trip someone might see online.
God isn't only present on the mountaintop.
He's here in the messy days inside the RV too.
We See Him in the Time We've Been Given
This one might be the biggest.
Time.
A year sounds long.
But already, four months have gone by unbelievably fast.
Our kids aren't going to be these ages again.
Hudson won't always be nine.
Macie won't always be this age.
Lincoln won't always be the little one.
Jessie and I know that.
And I think this trip has made us more aware of it.
We have been given this strange, wonderful season where the five of us get an enormous amount of time together.
Not all of it is easy.
Not all of it is exciting.
But it's ours.
And I'm increasingly seeing that as a gift.
His Light Isn't Always in the Big Moments
When I imagined seeing God during this trip, I probably imagined the obvious moments.
Standing beneath a giant mountain.
Watching a sunrise.
Looking across the Grand Canyon.
And yes.
He's there.
But I think I'm learning to recognize His light somewhere else too.
It's Hudson smiling at his dad after finally catching the fish.
It's our kids laughing as bison walk past the window.
It's someone we love pulling into the campground after driving hours to see us.
It's sitting around a fire together.
It's Jessie and me looking at each other after a hard day and knowing tomorrow we get to try again.
It's a quiet morning before everyone wakes up.
It's our kids running through the trees because somewhere suddenly feels like home.
Those moments aren't going to make a national park brochure.
They're probably not the pictures that get the most attention online.
But they're becoming the heart of this trip.
We Came to See the Country
And we are.
We've already seen more in four months than I could have imagined.
But I think God is slowly showing me that seeing the country might only be part of why we're here.
Maybe this year is also about slowing us down enough to see each other.
To watch our kids grow.
To strengthen our marriage.
To appreciate the people who love us.
To become more comfortable when things don't go according to plan.
To recognize how much we've already been given.
And to look around at a world far bigger and more beautiful than anything we could create ourselves.
We still have most of our year ahead of us.
I don't know what all of it will look like.
And for someone who loves planning, maybe that's part of what God is teaching me too.
I don't need to know everything that's coming.
I just need to keep paying attention.
Because four months into this journey, God's light hasn't been hard to find.
It's been shining through the entire trip.
-Kayla