Back From the Beach

We are home from the Outer Banks--and what a quick trip it seems now that it's over! Actually, it was even quicker than we had planned. Originally, we were not scheduled to return to Maryland until tomorrow afternoon. But God's ways are not our ways!

We began to see this three days into our beach trip, when Matthew started running a high fever. His bout with sickness meant that Dave and I were up in the middle of the night to check his temperature, give him medicine, soothe and feed him. This lasted for four nights straight. Throughout this time, Cubby also experienced various and mysterious health problems, and my mom came down with a cold. Then, after the final night of Matthew's troubles, we awoke on Friday morning to the news that a stomach bug had invaded our home. First Lena and my brother-in-law, Asher, went down. Jacque succumbed later that day. At that point, Dave wisely decided that we should drive straight home on Saturday rather than extending our vacation with a stay at Jacque and Asher's house.

So on Saturday morning, we packed our van, said goodbye to the rest of the family and headed out. We hadn't driven five miles when Meg threw up her breakfast all over herself and her car seat. We cleaned up, stopped at Walmart for supplies, and kept driving, knowing that if Meg got worse we might have to find a hotel. Fortunately, she did not vomit again, though she was one miserable little girl for the rest of the day. We made it home just in time to get the kids to bed, then we unloaded the car and fell into bed ourselves. Three hours later, I woke up and headed to the bathroom for some one-on-one time with the commode. I spent almost the entire day on Sunday in bed with chills and aches, while David valiantly played house-husband.

The biggest bummer of it (to me) is that I had saved up all year to take Dave to Busch Gardens today. My roller-coaster loving guy hasn't made it to an amusement park in several years, and I was psyched that Jacque and Asher were willing to keep our kids while we went to ride the Big Bad Wolf and Alpengeist and the brand new Griffon. But, alas, it was not to be.

At times like this, I am extra grateful for the gospel. It is tempting to think that I have a right to complain about my marred and abbreviated vacation--to think that God owed me more than He delivered. But the gospel reminds me that what I really deserve is God's righteous wrath. And because Jesus went to the cross on my behalf, what I have instead is God's undeserved favor and forgiveness. So any vacation at all is icing on top of an already unbelievably sweet cake!

Plus, as my husband wrote in an email earlier today, "While it wasn’t exactly ultra restful, it was [a] very joyful [vacation]." For the most part, despite the minor trials, it truly was. And that's why I'll be following up this post with some others later in the week... pictures and stories (of all the nicer parts of our trip) are forthcoming!