Pure Joy

Once again, life’s a whirlwind. This blogging thing is near impossible with a full schedule and three children! James 1:2 says to “consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds”, so I guess a full schedule and three children would qualify as a trial or two. The hard part is considering it pure joy, and I know I fail miserably at this in many ways multiple times each day. For some reason, I haven’t really been able to enjoy the girls lately, which is sad in many respects. They’re not even teenagers yet, and I already feel like they couldn’t care less about my rules or what I have to say. So right there, I think I take it too personally since I’m a “words of encouragement” kind of guy when it comes to the Love Languages. And there’s probably some element of them not being biological. Isaac’s still too young (9 months as of yesterday) to really try me in terms of relationship goes (though sleepless nights and stinky diapers are each their own trial), I love being around him. In a way, I hope once he’s old enough to deliberately disobey me and hate my guts, that he does – that way I’ll know my relationship with the girls is “normal” for me. I’d hate to treat them differently than him, so I’m hoping it’s just the age thing rather than biological.
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Speaking of trials – dad and I started conversation 2.5 months ago around riding our bikes to work for both exercise and saving money on gas for the cars. This quickly faded in my realm as I was too busy to find time to train and prepare for the 11-14 mile ride one way. Subsequent to these conversations was an invite from my cousin to ride a local bike ride called the Ice Cream Odyssey. So I slowly got back on my bike, riding only 1-2 miles here and there. On one such ride - slightly longer at 7 miles – I passed a trail head for the Ohio Erie Canal Tow Path and thought I needed to check this out, especially now that the girls are starting to ride their bikes more. As I dwelled on the roads in my area along with the
Tow Path, commuting to work slowly seeped back into my head. Was this possible after all?
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So last week, I made up my mind to test the waters of power commuting. But before I made the commitment to commute, I wanted to test my route to see what I would be up against. And since I’m such a pansy when it comes to going it alone, I attempted to recruit a riding buddy. But since I caught everyone at a busy time in life, nothing happened all last week, and I barely got out on my bike, except for one 12-mile ride to the girls’ softball game (which did end up utilizing a part of my planned bike-to-work path). Finally, Sunday morning, I decided if I was going to do this, I just needed to go. So I got up at 6:00am with the intent on riding into downtown Akron and then back to get a shower before church. It was a rough ride (for me), but I made it, only getting lost once at a spot where the path was under construction just south of downtown. With my good buddy Ken riding in to town that night from Apple Creek to stay the night, I was beginning to get more excited about the upcoming bike week.
Ken rolled in on two wheels mid-afternoon Sunday, and we spent a good portion of the afternoon/evening listening to his stories, some of which you can read on his blog. He had many tips and encouraging words for my hopeful adventure – and some physical fine-tuning to the bike as it stood. Not only were his hands-on help, tutelage, and heartening presence beneficial to me, but he left me with a gift: a bright yellow riding jersey. While I had other things to purchase and plan for, my heart was ready. But were my legs?
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Monday morning, I woke up around 5:15am to say good-bye to Ken and listen to a few more of his stories while I ate breakfast. Then it was packing all of my clothes, “shower” supplies, and food for the week. I drove all of this to work Monday with hopes of commuting Tuesday thru the end of the week.
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Monday afternoon – storms rolled through. My thought was that this was testing my resolve. It made me think back to James 1:2… if I was going to do this thing, I wouldn’t only be facing a trial, but I’d be facing trails of many kinds as the Tow Path could potentially be muddy the next morning from all the rain that came down the night before. For my first commute, what was I going to see? I stopped at RD Bike Shop in Barberton to talk tires and other gear before heading to the girls’ softball game, which was still on despite the rain.
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I made it! No muddy trail, not a lot of pedestrian traffic, and no accidents! I did look up some commuting tips later in the day, which confirmed Ken’s look the day before when he told me to stay off sidewalks – while it was less of a “bikes have a right to the road” arrogance, he seemed deeply concerned. And in researching, I found that statistics for accidents are significantly higher if a bike is on the sidewalk rather than on the street in rush hour traffic. Check some of the tips, including this one, at this site.
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The ride in took 58 minutes and 1 second; the ride home took 58 minutes and 22 seconds - not bad for me, though I hope it improves as the summer wears on. The sun rising in the morning as well as the fog off the canal made for a beautiful first commuting experience – wish I had taken my camera! I would have taken my new mode of transportation to my softball game that night too, but I had to run a diaper to Sarah’s stinky baby friend at the girls’ softball game since they would be there for around 4 hours. Then it was straight to my game, where I found out quickly that I was glad I hadn’t taken the bike this time – my legs were like rubber, which made my usual swiftness around the base paths a big more sluggish. But we won, so we’re at 10-0 going into the final championship tournament next week.
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I didn’t ride in this morning since I had a 6:30am meeting at the church building and there was a bit of rain. My hope is to eventually turn into a “power commuter”, but I’ll need a poncho and some other gear for that type of thing. Not to mention a lot of conditioning of my person.
Life’s still busy with things ranging from softball, biking, church groups, and picnics, to more biking, more church groups, and more picnics (among other things). Thankfully, softball is essentially over (one more evening for me), but I hope and long for a break in the action before death. I want a vacation, but I want it to be full of nothing. I need time to focus on something outside of the busyness I’ve noted. I need time to pray, time to read, time to proactively pour Christ into my children and wife. If God wants to use me somewhere, someday for something significantly greater than I am, I need to be working now… and it starts with my family.
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“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters…”