Navigating Life’s Darkest Moments
/in Trucking/by JoannaLife on the road has its share of long nights and heavy burdens. I’ve spent enough time on the highway to know that solitude can make a man confront things he’d rather leave buried. It’s a place where the mind is left alone with its thoughts, with nothing but the distant horizon and the weight of what’s waiting back home.
I remember a particular morning when I received an urgent call. A man from our church needed a ride to a hospital in Philadelphia. He was new to our congregation and had recently shared that he was living on borrowed time—cancer had given him no more than a year. As we drove through the early morning light, he opened up about his struggles from the night before.
He talked about the fear that had gripped him as he thought about his family. He knew his time was running out, and the thought of leaving his loved ones behind tore at his heart. He wasn’t just a man facing the end of his days; he was a father, a husband, someone whose life was intertwined with those he loved. He told me how he had spent the night in prayer, grappling with the reality that soon, he wouldn’t be there to provide, protect, or guide.
He spoke of a moment when it felt like God was speaking directly to him. It wasn’t an audible voice, but a question that resonated deep in his soul: “Can you care for them better than me?” It was a simple question, yet it cut through all his fears and doubts. In that moment, he realized that he couldn’t. No matter how much he loved his family, no matter how much he wanted to stay, he had to trust that God could care for them better than he ever could.
As he told me this, I could see the peace that had settled over him. It wasn’t a peace that came from having all the answers or knowing what the future held. It was the kind of peace that comes when a man finally surrenders to something greater than himself. I have come to refer to this as his “Gethsemane moment.” It was a turning point, a moment when he let go of his will and placed everything in God’s hands. I’ve thought about that conversation many times since then. My friend passed away a few months later, and I had the honor of leading his memorial service. Standing before his family and friends, I shared the story of that drive to Philadelphia and the peace he had found in the midst of his storm. It was a reminder to all of us that there are moments in life when we face our own Gethsemane—moments of deep crisis where we have to choose between holding on to our fears or letting go and trusting in God’s care.
For everyone who spends days and nights on the road, those moments can hit hard. You carry more than just freight; you carry the weight of your worries, your fears, and the people you leave behind. The highway can be a lonely place, a place where you are left to your thoughts and the reality of your mortality. But it can also be a place where you find your own Gethsemane moment, where you are forced to confront the things that matter most and make peace with the things you can’t control.
We are used to navigating the road ahead, but there are some roads that we can’t travel alone. There are burdens too heavy for us to carry by ourselves, fears that we can’t outrun no matter how many miles we put behind us. But in those moments of crisis, we’re given a choice: to keep fighting on our own or to surrender to the one who can carry the load for us.
My friend found peace in his Gethsemane moment, not because he found a way to beat the cancer or because he knew what the future held for his family. He found peace because he realized that there was someone who could care for his loved ones better than he ever could. It’s a lesson for all of us, whether we’re facing a life-threatening illness or just the daily grind of the road. There’s a peace that comes when we let go of our fears and trust in God’s care. So the next time you’re out there on the highway, alone with your thoughts and the weight of the world on your shoulders, remember that you don’t have to carry it all by yourself. There’s a peace waiting for you in your own Gethsemane moment, a peace that comes when you let go and trust that God can handle whatever you’re facing—better than you ever could.