We finished our long road trip and the time to reflect needs to wash over me. There were certainly so many FUN moments. There were SIGNIFICANT moments and conversations. There were REMINDERS as well.

The truly fun moments for me, as a baseball fan, were visiting Wrigley Field in Chicago and touring the Louisville Slugger factory and museum in Louisville, KY. They are iconic places and for a guy buried in the South now where everything is SEC football, these visits were highlights. I love the game of baseball and it was great being around places where baseball is rooted.

The significant moments were conversations. They were visits with friends and family. It was a treasure to capture moments with people, which was what this trip focused on for us. We are at a time of life when we want to see people because you don’t know when you get those opportunities again. There were sweet conversations, lots of laughter, and pauses where we sat with folks in some of their pain. In all of it we found treasure.

As we finished our trip, I came to some reminders. We visited two places that mark the Civil Rights Movement and the overarching history of slavery, racism, and the struggle for equality: the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery.

Next month will mark the 60th Anniversary of the bombing of the 16th St Baptist Church where 4 young girls were killed. It was a beautiful place to visit and a reminder of all that has gone on for civil rights. It is a reminder that justice is too often delayed. It wasn’t until 2002 that the last of the bombers were convicted and jailed.

The next day we stopped in Montgomery to visit the Legacy Museum again. They have a bigger space which we had not visited, so we wanted to explore how they were telling the story in the bigger space. The project is deeply moving. It moves visitors visually through the history of slavery to the modern topic of justice and prison sentencing and the reform still needed. It is built on the site of a former cotton warehouse where slaves worked to bring wealth to the white owners of Alabama. Everything is intentional in telling the story.

These were the reminders. They reminded me of why I was living in the South. They reminded me of the work I still want to grown in. They reminded me that I need to keep learning, keep praying, and keep working.

It was so amazing to have this at the end of our trip. It gave me a sense of, “Keep at the task given to you for this season.”