Have You Met Bubba?

Allow me to introduce you to my truck. His name is Bubba. We picked his name because he reminds us of the South. I spent my teenage years there. I met my wife there. We raised our kids there. Our grandkids live there. I suppose they’ll bury me there. Bubba reminds me of home.

Bubba has clearly seen his better days. He’s older now, with a lot of rust and repaint. He has a broken tailgate hinge and a hole in the muffler. There’s a chip in his windshield. He’s probably overdue for an oil change. He’s pretty dirty on the inside…but I fail to see why I’d need to clean him now. He’d just get dirty again. He’s a truck, after all.

For his previous owner, Bubba hauled around a fishing boat. These days, Bubba goes to church, and to the coffee shop, and to the golf course, and every spring he takes a few trips to the garden center for mulch and dirt and some tomato plants. There’s usually a half-finished bottle of my favorite cola in his cup holder.

Someday he’s going to get me home, and I’ll shut off his ignition, and that’ll be it. He will have taken his last drive. And when he does, he will look like he’s done.

It seems to me that when this life is over, we should look like we’ve lived our lives to the full. I suspect I’ll look like my old truck…rusty, dented, some scratches and dirt, just like Bubba. I will one day, by God’s grace, stumble across the finish line.
Fight the good fight, finish the work, keep the faith.