Sorry Mustang: "No Soup For You!"

By Mike Kelley

Ford Mustangs are one of my life’s top passions. Last year, I bought my third. But, I can’t just own them. I have to soup them up! Stripes, racing wheels, and performance mufflers are just a few of the projects that have captured my time and my dollars. I’d already had such modifications in mind for my latest Mustang (and yes, it’s already striped). That is, until Adleigh Grace arrived.

Adleigh Grace is our brand new baby girl. She was born March 26. She is a true joy, but also quite the education. (To say I’ve gained much wisdom is an understatement.) I now know what it is to love your own child. It really is indescribably unique. The kind of love that has me giving constantly of myself, without regret, but not without knowing the sacrifices involved.

One such sacrifice is the amount of time I now spend driving the Mustang. I drive it less than I did before she was born. Now, I’m almost always driving the SUV instead. I never understood why so many Americans drive SUVs these days. Everywhere I look, it seems that people are driving trucks with four door crew cabs and SUVs almost exclusively. But with nearly everyone

having children at some time or another, including me, the reason has become crystal clear.

Car seats! Eureka. Much to my dismay, I’ve discovered it. Ohio law requires that children ride in car seats.  For newborns, the carriers have to be rear-facing and, preferable, centered in the back seat. Let’s not even talk about how incredibly difficult it is to maneuver the huge car seat into our two-door car. The size, and our car’s “hump”, won’t allow it to be centered behind the Mustang’s front seats, so it must be locked into a rear bucket seat instead. But then you must move a front seat so far forward the person riding there kisses the windshield! The compromise is neither safe nor comfortable. I say, forget it.

That’s right. I just forget it. I don’t even bother to drive the Mustang much anymore. Life has changed, and with that change come sacrifices. Sacrifices I choose to make because I love my daughter I give up my mustang because I love her. I can’t begin to imagine it being the other way around. Giving up my child because I so love the Mustang. That’s ridiculous. In fact, I can’t for a moment think of anything or anyone I would give her up for. If there were such a thing or such a person, the love required to get me to give Adleigh up would have to be a love so strong I can’t comprehend it.

But that is exactly what God did for us. In John 3:16 it is Jesus himself who speaks one of the Holy Bible’s most well recognized truths when he says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. Now that I am a father, I can better understand the depths of that sacrifice, and the power in God’s love for us. For, without a love so incomprehensible and so supernatural, we could never see Heaven. Thanks to God’s special love, someday we can.

But for now, my passion for Mustangs is turning toward a calling for a crew cab truck. I can’t wait to get one, so I can soup it up. Add a lift kit, racing wheels, and performance mufflers. All that followed by the most important modification of all. I can add that huge car seat, and Adleigh Grace. Ah! Now that’s what daddy calls a little taste of heaven.