Rear View Mirrors

The last few years have been tough on our family.

We have lost both my father in law and my step dad.

Both to cancer.

Cancer sucks.

I pray they find a cure for it in my children's lifetime... 

You know when you lose someone close to you there are always things to be sorted out and given away.

Well we were blessed when my father in law passed away to be given a few of his vehicles.

I know a few sounds like so many. 

You'd have to know him though... I could do so many posts on him. He was a wonderful man.

It's funny because the vehicles we received all had one thing missing.

The rear view mirror.

This truly cracks me up because I am picturing my father in law prying the mirrors off these vehicles.

Now mind you these aren't small cars that one could back up easily without the use of a rear view. They are all large cars. Two large SUV's and a conversion van (aka the creeper van).

I was talking to my husband the other day because we had work done on one of the vehicles and one of the things we had done was to put the mirror back on. 
(We love you Granpappy but we must be able to see behind us in order to reverse the car!)

I told my husband there is some sort of metaphor here...

(Although we both agreed he probably just didn't want them there. That was so him.
Again...I could do so many posts on him.)

My father in law was a super successful businessman and I wonder if he had all these removed because he knew he had come from nothing but didn't want to look back at the past. 
At the struggles and difficulties it took to get him where he was.

We don't get to where we are without struggles. 
And sometimes when we reach that point of "success" whatever that may be we don't want to reflect back. 
We just want to relish in the glory.

Or one big issue that I sometimes struggle with myself is remembering I am not who I used to be.

I am a new person.

And I am constantly growing and changing.

And even though my past made me what I am today, it is NOT WHO I am today.

So I don't want to look back and live in the past.

I want to look straight ahead. Keep moving forward. Keep pushing myself to be the wife, the mother, the friend God designed me to be.

It reminds me of this verse:

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

So thank you Granpappy for this reminder to not get caught staring in the rear view mirror of life. 

(*unless of course you are on Nicholasville Road. By all means, PLEASE use the rear view. Safety first people. ;))

Granpappy's 1996 Tahoe. 100,000 miles. And NO rear view mirror.