THE RED WAGON
Some things you carry. Some things carry you.
I still have it. Weathered. Paint gone in places.
Wheels that have logged more miles than they were built for.
But the handle is still there. It always was.
The question was never the weight. It was who was holding the handle.
Everyone is pulling something.
The question is what… and for how long.
And whether you’ll ever release the handle.
I still have it — this old Radio Flyer. Weathered. Paint stripped back to bare metal in places. Wheels that have logged more miles than they were built for. It doesn’t look like much. But the handle is still there. It always was.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit — for getting me this far. And to Jesus — for taking over the handle. I know whose hands are on it now. That changes everything.
To Marty — for staying the course. For being faithful in your love for your Heavenly Father and for me. I never go a day without knowing it.
To you — reading this, and to the friends who take the time to reach out… may this find the place in your life where it belongs.
To my mother — for showing me how to treat a woman, even while carrying more pain than you should have had to. That lesson stayed. It shaped more than you knew.
SCRIPTURE
“Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” — Amos 3:3 (NKJV)
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” — Matthew 6:24 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
I have been building and assembling things since I was a child.
Started with my crib.
Then my alarm clock.
God knows what else.
My mom used to tell stories of me using my fingernails like screwdrivers.
My fingers like pliers.
Those stories still circulate the family.
When Heath Company sold assembly kits — all the parts, all the instructions — I was in my element.
My prize piece was a tuner amplifier.
Must have taken me three months.
I followed every line of the directions.
Found mistakes in them.
I was what some people call… thorough.
Then the years passed.
And somewhere along the way…
I stopped reading the instructions.
BBQ.
Dog cage.
Bicycle.
You know exactly what I’m talking about.
Short screw in the long hole.
Long screw in the short one.
Nothing fits.
Everything feels forced.
And because taking it all apart feels like too much work…
you call it good.
But calling it good does not make it sound.
One day the door starts to sag.
And you know exactly where the missing piece is.
THE STORY
I was about seven years old.
Summers back then were spent at a cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Boulder Creek.
My parents had it with my grandfather.
Let’s just say that cabin left marks on a seven-year-old
that no child should carry.
My mother came for a weekend visit.
I still remember assuming she knew what was happening.
I was sworn to secrecy.
Her way of caring for me was to take me to a store I loved.
Western Automotive.
Felton, California.
Mounted on the wall was a little red wagon.
Ten dollars.
I’d been saving.
Doing odd jobs for an older woman in the area who needed help.
When we got to the store…
It was twelve dollars.
My mom looked at me.
“What are you going to do?”
I swallowed hard.
But I already knew.
I could earn the rest in time.
So I accepted it.
It wasn’t coming home with me.
She was proud of how I handled it.
What I didn’t know…
was that she had already bought it.
It was loaded in the car.
On the way back to the cabin she told me:
Good things come from hard work and good intention.
When it was time for her to leave,
she asked me to help load her things.
I opened the trunk.
“Oh… I guess we need to take that out so I have room.”
There it was.
I’ve thought about that moment a lot over the years.
I have wondered what kind of wagon my mother was pulling.
She had not met Jesus yet either.
Neither had I.
We both learned pain before peace.
And I have wondered whether my grandfather had a wagon too.
Because hurt gets handed down
until someone decides this is where it stops.
I pulled that wagon around every day after that.
G.I. Joe.
Hot Wheels.
Rocks and tree moss.
Whatever I could find.
Sometimes a friend.
Sometimes a dog.
And before long…
all the things I could not name
went in the wagon too.
Fear.
Shame.
Confusion.
Silence.
I just kept pulling.
Down the trail of life.
Quietly.
Every day.
The payload got heavier.
I added a side wall to carry all the junk.
Most people I know are pulling something.
A backpack.
A suitcase.
Their own little red wagon.
And relationship is the heaviest load of all.
I had a death grip on that handle.
THE MOMENT
Neither of us came into this marriage empty-handed.
We both carried the weight of what hadn’t worked before.
Failed relationships.
Broken trust.
Old vows.
Old fears.
Things that don’t announce themselves at the door —
they move in quietly
and start rearranging the furniture.
We were committed.
We were willing.
We were all in.
But willing and healed are not the same thing.
And a hundred percent sounds beautiful
until it starts costing you everything you still protect.
I was asking marriage to carry what only Jesus could.
And everything I refused to release kept riding with us.
THE TURN
I was a victim of religion for a long time.
I’d watched people who said they knew Jesus.
And I kept looking at how they lived
and thinking…
That’s not something I want.
Marty introduced Him differently.
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t push.
She just said:
“I love Him whether you do or not. And my love for you is magnified because of my love for Him.”
Then she told me about a long car ride.
Alone.
Crying out to Jesus.
That if He would turn her life around —
she would serve Him the rest of her life.
That is exactly what she has done.
He gave her to me.
She was the answer to a prayer
she had already prayed for me
before I even knew I needed one.
That undid me.
It still took time.
These things always do.
But something shifted in me.
And I started asking different questions.
What holds?
What’s actually true?
Who is governing my life?
THE DRIFT
It sounds like freedom — living without a rule of life.
It isn’t.
When nothing governs you, whatever arrives first does.
Culture.
Comfort.
Old wounds.
Urgency.
Fear.
They all volunteer for the handle.
I know.
Because I let them.
For years.
Age forty.
Billy Graham.
Four thousand five hundred people.
Marty was there.
And when the altar call came…
who better to call me forward
than Billy Graham himself.
He showed me what life looked like without Jesus.
And what it looked like with Him.
That night…
my grip on the handle began to loosen.
But forty years of frozen grip
doesn’t release all at once.
It releases one surrender at a time.
THE REFLECTION
Here’s what I eventually understood:
We were already free agents.
Both of us.
We could have gone anywhere.
We chose each other.
Freely.
And we keep choosing.
Every day.
Not because love is easy.
Because covenant is holy.
I choose her because she chooses me.
And God chose us.
Orchestrated us toward one another
through everything we had both been through.
The most powerful earthly thing I have ever experienced in my life
is my marriage to Marty.
But freedom without authority is not freedom.
It is exposure.
Real freedom is knowing whose hand is on the handle.
We live under one authority.
Not culture.
Not urgency.
Not reputation.
Not fear.
Jesus Christ alone governs our lives.
We are not what we produced.
We are not what we lost.
We are not what others expected.
Our identity is received.
Not achieved.
Thirty-four years right there. Heads together. Still leaning in. The wagon is still with us — but Jesus has the handle now. This is what covenant looks like when it stays under the right authority.
The day I handed that handle to Jesus
and climbed into the wagon instead of trying to drag it alone —
everything changed.
A friend once described it this way.
Imagine a football team.
Every time they huddle,
no matter the game,
no matter the score,
the quarterback calls the same play.
“On one — Abide, abide, abide!”
Not once.
Not when it’s convenient.
Every time.
Because when everything else changes —
the pressure, the opposition, the noise —
the assignment does not.
That’s what a rule of life is.
Not a cage.
A trellis.
Something strong enough to guide
what is growing between you.
Walk free.
Stay yoked.
And let Christ carry
what was never yours to drag alone.
WALKAWAY LINE
You don’t need more strength — you need to release the handle.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What are you still pulling that Jesus is asking you to release?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
You know what I’ve been pulling.
You’ve always known.
Thank You for waiting.
For not forcing the grip open.
For loving me enough
to let me discover I could not carry it alone.
Thank You for Marty.
For the way she loved You first —
and showed me what that looked like
before I had language for it.
Bring me back to alignment
when I reach for that handle again.
And I will.
Remind me that a life governed by You
is not a smaller life.
It is the only life that holds.
One day I hope to be on my knees in front of You —
saying thank You.
Personally.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~
Well, then maybe you should consider spending the rest of our amazing lives together. Truly all yours, G ~
My Darling Gregrey, you never cease to move me. . .
Yours Truly
~M