AFTER THE VACATION
A few things I learned while on Vacation this year:
1. It takes a couple of days to realize you are on vacation:
It’s kind of like walking fast on the people movers in the airport and suddenly the people mover ends and your pace of walk has to adjust. You stumble a few feet and then make the adjustment, hopefully without falling and hurling your luggage all over the lobby. The first two days of vacation this year, admittedly I was stumbling. I was frustrated, irritable and generally lost. What do you do when you have been doing so much and now you have nothing to do but explore, site see and relax? That word: relax, it sounds like a foreign word. I have allowed myself to be programmed to think if I am not working, I am not useful. By day three the program had run its course and crashed. I started to realize it was OK to relax.
2. You really need a Vacation:
We tend to forget the importance of a vacation. Taking time to get rested and refreshed is so important. Getting re-connected with your spouse in a setting where you have each other’s full attention. I spent time this vacation reconnecting with the first call of my life to be a husband and father. How grateful to God I am for my family and the time given me to spend with them. When my time on earth is over there will be those who remember me as one of their pastor’s but my children will remember me as dad.
3. Remembering how to have fun!
Life can get very serious in a hurry. Our lives are very fragile. At the moment I have a number of family members who are in poor health. It has to do with their age for the most part. Two uncles in their early 80’s my mom in her mid 70’s and my aunts in their late 70’s. It will be very hard to say goodbye to them, each of them have played a significant role in my life and in our family.
In my role as a pastor many times I am working with people who are in crises or facing extreme life challenges. We all go through difficult seasons in life. During these times we forget to enjoy life and the blessings God has provided.
We forget how to have fun, to smile, to bask in a beautiful moment. Vacations are a way we can reconnect with fun. This vacation among other things Michele and I went snorkeling off the coast of Key Largo. It was a blast. Michele has always been a little fearful of getting too close to fish, but once we were in the open ocean looking at the beauty around the coral reefs, her fear dissipated. Everything was alive, such color, such beauty. She did not want to get out of the water. We were the last ones on the boat. We laughed so much. The rental car company discovered it was my wife’s birthday and they upgraded us to a convertible. When we finally learned how we opened the roof. Michele had her regular glasses on and she placed her sunglasses over the top of them and announced: “Look how cool we are”. We laughed about that one throughout the vacation.
Vacations are good for us. We don’t do them very often and that makes it even more special. We both feel refreshed and have a new perspective on our lives together and on our life calling. It is good to be home. I love what God has called me to do and who He has called me to be. Very excited about finishing the year strong at the Grace Place. So grateful for our church family and the leaders God is raising up in our midst. If you are in the Austin/Round Rock area and looking for a home church check us out: Sat. 6pm or Sun. 10:30am