Life on the Beach

Everyone loves vacation.  

Our family tries to spend as much time together as we possibly can.  We love to just be together and to share what is going on in our lives.  To me, this is the best part of life.  We are all very close, and enjoy making each other laugh.

When I run through the years that Heather and I have had children, I think that the best times that we have had, I think they would have been the times that we spent at the houses we have rented on the beach.  We love to go to Topsail Island in North Carolina and spend a week together.  Warm summer days, and cool summer evenings walking the beach, and playing with our grandchildren.  Laughing until our sides hurt at things that my son brings up, and the incredibly funny things he says.  Watching my granddaughters play and run around the house and on the beach.  To me, there is nothing better!

We usually arrive on Saturday afternoon, and get set up for the week as soon as we can.  This takes about 5 minutes, and then we are right on the beach.  We love to say how much we love the house we got this year, and all the good things we want to do in the coming days.  I have some amazing pictures of some of the sunrises that we have experienced there in the morning hours.  The incredible colors of the morning sky, and the reflection on the water out over the ocean.  The calming sounds of the waves and the warm breezes coming down the shore.  Life is as good as it gets, at that point.  I forget everything and just thank God for all He has done for me and the joys that He brings into my life.

The problem comes when the next Saturday arrives.  We have to pack up everything and make the 10 hour drive back to Pittsburgh.  We try to get in one more game the night before we leave, but we are all feeling a little down about having to go back home.

Simple thought, but I really do wish I could live on the beach and never leave.  I wish I could just relax in the surf and watch the beautiful sunrises every day.  I would love to sink my feet into the warm sand while sitting in a beach chair and watch the kids play in the waves.  I wish I could get up early in the morning, grab my fishing poles, and get down to the warm water to fish every morning.  That week of vacation usually goes so fast...too fast.

We would all love that for ourselves, but that is just not how life is.  Life, for most of us, is about getting up and going to work and getting the things done that we need to do.

As much as we don't like to admit it, life is not lived on the beach.  It's lived in the every day ever day.  The routines of life and the "regularness" of our existence.

Here's the great thing, though.  God can make our everyday stuff great by reminding us of His presence that is with us every hour and every minute of every day.  He is there for the every day every day.

Life's not lived on the beach, but God helps us to feel like we are living on the beach.  He told us, in His Word, that we can have life abundant in the everydayness of our lives.

Stay happy, and fish on in the surf of the every day.