Full heart, exceedingly full.

A lot has been going on.

Now and then I have an idea for a blog post, and then it evaporates.

I want to write a post about the Holy Spirit, but it probably belongs on Seeking Wisdom.

My health has been a bit pesky of late, but that belongs on To Sleep.

Today will be scattered, more of a diary entry than a blog post.  Messy.  Incoherent, perhaps.

Back when we went on our trip to Zion National Park for our 25th Anniversary,  I never finished writing about it.  I hope I can get at least one more decent post out of our trip to the redwoods, before the images and memories fade.  I need to write about the Best Hike in the World.  The exuberant man on top of his camper.  The white-faced, black-eyed teenagers near Patrick's point.  Our secret discovery of barking seals, spouting whales and swooping eagles.  Cooking Petrale sole at the Trinidad Inn.  The man in the elevator who asked us, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"  The midnight desk clerk at Embassy Suites Dallas Airport.  The British lady who needed some help with her walker, coming off the airplane in Chicago.

So many pictures in my mind.  So many stories.  So little time.  So little energy.

Lupus.  Bah.  And the bills that go with it.  Boo.  And the insurance companies that consistently deny claims the first time they are submitted.  Hissssssss.

In April, Shawn and I went to the beach, the Atlantic Ocean, and spent some time with David and Ashton.

In May, Jon and I went to Minnesota and saw Aunt Nunie as she was packing up to move out of 2715 Wingfield.  We said good-bye to Great-Grandma Herbold's historic house.

Also in May, Shawn and I went to San Francisco and the redwood forests of northern California.  Within two months, I touched the water in the oceans on both our east and west coasts.

This is not my life.  I am a run-of-the-mill housewife.  I do laundry, clean toilets, and shop at Aldi.  I am not a big traveler.

But wait.  There's more.

In June, Shawn and I went to Georgia.  (We also crossed through a corner of Alabama, adding two more states to my list of places I've been.)

We met Ashton's lovely family, and David asked Ashton to marry him, out in the pasture, under the spreading oaks.  She said yes!

It was a happy, happy time.

Oh, the plans He has for them.  The plans He has for us all.

Smiles all around.  We all smiled up a storm!

If the engagement was this joyful, we'd better hold onto our hats when the wedding day arrives!

Bucket List

I have had one item on my bucket list.  Well, maybe two, but the second is on hold, possibly permanently.

The second item on my bucket list is a trip to Israel.  I would like to see where Jesus lived, walk the roads, smell the air.  But I have lupus, and such a trip--jet lag and all--would be very ambitious even were it not for the volatile political situations in the world.

The other item on my bucket list was to see the Redwood Forests on the west coast of our own country.  Last week, I did.

We flew to San Francisco.  Here is proof of it:

We were in San Francisco for a few days while Shawn worked at a trade show.  When the show finished, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and away to the north.  Whew!  I like the country better than the city.

We drove north into Mendocino County, and came to a town called Ukiah.  There we turned left, and drove 13 miles on a treacherously high and twisty road called Orr Springs.

Eventually, Orr Springs Road descended on the far side of a high range, and (although this is what we came for) quite surprisingly we found ourselves nestled in a grove of giant redwood trees.

We did not have the hang of photographing them, although we quickly learned why so many pictures of them look like this:

And like this:

And sometimes like this:

There is practically no way to take a picture that does not show the trees to be wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.  They are that big.  Taller than I'd ever imagined.  Literally breathtaking, as in: I can't breathe and my chest hurts from the immensity of them.

We learned that it helps to take pictures with familiar objects in them, for perspective:

Here, a redwood next to Shawn (a "familiar object") for perspective.

And a bigger one, behind me.

And an even bigger one.  They kept getting bigger and bigger.

So that was our first encounter, and it was beyond my wildest dreams.  I wondered where we could possibly go from there.  But wait.  There's more.

The next day, we drove through a tree.

We visited a tree house, which was very much reminiscent of a hobbit house:

And then we drove up the Avenue of the Giants.  This is what it looks like:

You drive through grove after grove of giant redwoods, their trunks reaching up directly from the side of the road, which is wide enough for two lanes, but sometimes just barely.

Avenue of the Giants winds through Humboldt Woods State Park, where we stopped and did a few hikes, and took lots of pictures.

Shawn is standing in front of the roots of a tree that fell over many years ago.  I wonder what could have caused it to fall like that, pulling its roots out of the ground.

A friendly tree, almost small enough to hug.

You feel rather insignificant in such magnificent surroundings.

See me looking up at this tree?  Being in the redwoods does something to your posture.  Also, my glasses (which I generally wear on the top of my head to keep them handy) kept falling off the back of my head, over and over.

The sunshine was magical, dappling through the leaves and landing on fronds and ferns.  I was inclined to feel a bit like a bug, darting around beneath these silent, dignified beings with their verdant heads lost in the light above.

Trees like this were still alive, with branches and foliage above.  I think I'd like to roll out some bedding and take a nap inside one of these trees.

You can't possibly take it all in, the height, the silence, the cool shade, the lush undergrowth.  Even if you are right there, you can't see it all, and you get dizzy looking up and turning around as you try to.  Pictures fall far short.  I am overflowing with gratitude to God for allowing me to see and experience this, and to my husband for being the Lord's instrument for getting me there.

There were many beautiful, blooming wildflowers, too, and so much more, so much I could not contain my heart.

I will continue this post soon . . .

Beach houses

This will be interesting only to my immediate family.

We first began going to the beach in about 2002, I think.  We had a pastor at that time who spoke often in his sermons about Ocean Isle Beach.  It sounded good, so we gave it a try.  I think Jon was six, Laura was nine, David was eleven and Shannon was twelve, or thereabout.  That seems right.  We stayed in an oceanfront home called Fisher's Wharf on the corner of Raeford.  We arrived as the sun was setting, to a magical sky full of amazing pastel colors.  The children ran around the decking to the front of the house and out the boardwalk to the ocean where they sank directly into the foaming ocean waves, in their clothes, and Shannon called out, "Mom!  How did you find this place?"  It was a very comfortable house; I slept to the roar of the ocean like I'd never slept on vacation before in my life.  We enjoyed the beach, which was very full of shells.  I'd bought a guidebook about North Carolina, and it spoke of Sunset Beach, 20 minutes to the southwest.  We drove over to check it out one afternoon, and loved the fine white sand and the quiet atmosphere.  We decided to try that island if we ever came again.  Our house on Ocean Isle had everything we needed except good knives.  After we got home, I bought a special knife for taking on beach vacations.  Mama gotta cook.

Our next beach vacation was in April of 2005, I'm pretty sure.  We went to a house on Sunset Beach called Amazing Grace.  It was on the extreme eastern end of the island (more extreme then than now, as that end has since been further developed).  It was a two-story turreted house, and the windows surrounding the sitting room off the master bedroom gave a circular view around the end of the island from ocean to channel to bay.  We were delighted to discover that pink sunrises awoke us each morning, with lovely views right from the bed!  That house also came with an impressive supply of toys for the kids to take to the beach.  It was a good week.

We went back again in August of that same year (2005).  Our house was called Southern Comfort, which I did not approve of.  It was a classic beach house floor plan with living/dining/kitchen down the middle and two bedrooms and a bathroom on either side.  I remember lots of white wicker and high, vaulted ceilings with ceiling fans.  It was a second row house, just across the street from the Fifth Street beach access.  It's been rebuilt, or at least renamed (renaming could only have been an improvement).  That was the year we bought an inflatable raft and the kids navigated the channel to visit Ocean Isle.  It was also the year when Shawn and I spent evenings walking along the shore under a full moon at high tide.

I think we went right back again in 2006.  That would have been the April when Shannon was a junior, David was in ninth grade, Laura was in eighth grade, and Jon was in fifth.  I think that is right?  That time we went in April and it was cold. We stayed in a lovely home on the back bay on the east end called Conch Out, and I think it may have been my favorite vacation.  David had his saxophone.  There was a crab trap and a floating dock to the bay where we could set the trap and catch crabs.  Jon made friends with the people next door.  Our friend TJ drove up from SC to visit us.

It seems like in those days we meant to go to the beach every other year, and then to Minnesota on the alternating years.  But then we started going to the beach in April and to Minnesota over the summer.  Maybe this is accurate?  We'd gone to Maine when Jonny was two (1997) and it was freezing.  Then we went to Cape Cod in about 2000.  That was even colder than Maine (it was one of those summerless years).  We flew all the way to California and explored the Pacific coast from Pasadena to San Diego in February of 2001, but that was cold too (at least we had a heated pool at our San Diego hotel).  Finally, we found the Brunswick Beaches of NC, which even when they are cold in April are not as cold as Maine in June.  In August the water is like a bath, and even I can walk straight in.

Anyway, that 2006 vacation in Conch Out was the last beach vacation we took as a whole family.  It was a good one, full of sweet azaleas and bitter sunscreen.  Little did I know that we wouldn't have the whole tribe together at the beach again.  Well, perhaps some day we will, but it hasn't happened yet.

April 2008 we went back, this time to the west end of the Sunset Beach, near Bird Island and the marsh.  We stayed in an amazing home called Tranquility Base.  It was on 40th Street and had double decks overlooking the marsh and the sunsets.  Everything about the house was fabulous, from the decorating, to the kitchen equipment, to the large soaking tub in the master bathroom, to the sunset views.  They even provided kayaks, although the marsh was low and we didn't have much luck using them. The only drawback (besides that it was cold) was that Shannon wasn't with us; she was in college, and her spring break was different from everyone else's.  David and Laura got sunburned studying for AP exams on one of the roof decks.  It was a fabulously beautiful house, and I remember Laura saying, "If their beach house is this nice, can you imagine what their regular house is like?"  This house is no longer available to renters.  I think one of the most memorable things about that vacation was the trip back up north to New York.  Spring was full blown in North Carolina, with spring green leaves spreading gentle shade over colorful bulb flowers everywhere.  As we headed north, the flowers disappeared and the leaves got smaller and smaller, until finally we reached the land of bare branches.  It began to snow, and we arrived home to a blizzard and a snow day school cancellation that Monday.

In the summer of 2009, we went to Texas to see Shawn's paternal grandmother, whom the children had never met.  We did the Riverwalk in San Antonio, visited the Alamo and swam in the gulf around Port Aransas.   This was our last family vacation, and it was one to remember forever.

August 2010 we went back to Sunset Beach.  That summer we stayed on Fifth Street, towards the east end of the island, farther back from the ocean than we'd ever stayed before.  We used the money we saved on the house rental to rent a vacation package that gave us a grill, a beach wagon, four beach chairs and an umbrella.

It turned out to be a fabulous way to do things.  The house was called Carpenters' Cottage, and it was really cute.  The background colors were neutral and light, the bedspreads were eye-poppingly bright and beachy, the furniture was comfortable and the kitchen was very nicely equipped.  We took David, Laura, Jon and a friend of Laura's, and much Boom-o was played.  It was a great vacation until Thursday, when Shawn received an email that threatened a ferocious lawsuit against the boss at his previous company.  This event put a major damper on our memories of an otherwise lovely vacation.

Nevertheless, we went back for another round in August 2011.  We tried the same strategy: rent a house farther from the beach, and spend the savings on a grill and beach gear.  The house in 2011 was called Three Sisters, which was ironic because we had three children, but only one sister: David, Laura and Jon.

Although we missed Shannon immensely, we had a magical, beautiful time together in this well maintained and equipped pink house.  It was not the fanciest house we've stayed in, but it was one of the most comfortable and livable houses; I loved it.  It was the first time we stayed in a pink house, and every time I came "home" to it, I had a little thrill that this pink house was mine for the week.  The kids got along well, Laura was happy because she had her own bathroom, and the waves were warm and wonderful.  I think this was the year Jon bought his first skim board and learned to use it.  Friday, as I was beginning to think about packing up to leave, I opened my computer and found a message from my niece Abby, saying that my father had suffered a heart attack, but that he was okay.  So that vacation had a less than ideal ending too, although it was a blessing that we did have immediate confirmation that all was well.  Shawn and Jon and I headed to Minnesota to see my parents after dropping Laura off at college, so we got an extra trip that summer.

August 2012, we set forth again.  This time, we took a houseful: our youth pastor, his wife and their two little children, and a friend of David's, as well as David and Jon (Laura had already gone back to college by the time we went).  That year, we got a house called Sand In My Shoes.  It actually had a sort of separate apartment upstairs, with a kitchenette and everything, so our youth pastor's family could have some semblance of privacy.  I'd always wanted to have the joy of watching little children discover the beach, and it was exciting and rewarding to practice up on some grandma skills.  That was a busy vacation because, besides having extra people along, I was trying to prepare for my job teaching English at a Christian school (the vacation had been planned long before the job offer came along), and this was totally overwhelming to me.  I don't have many clear memories of this vacation, but I had an impression of other people playing a lot of Settlers of Catan and watching Batman movies late at night.

The summer of 2013, we moved from New York to Illinois.  We did not have a vacation.  The summer of 2014, Laura got married and we did not have a vacation that year, either, unless you count the trip to Ohio for the wedding.

Last summer, 2015, we went to the beach for two whole weeks!  The house was called Beach Time.  It was, perhaps, the shabbiest house we had ever rented, although it provided everything we needed, even boogie boards.  The kitchen was decent except for the knives (and I had to go to Walmart and buy a pan to bake chicken in).  We didn't rent a beach package because the price had more than doubled, and being there two weeks made the cost ridiculously prohibitive, but they did furnish a charcoal grill with the property.  It was a super vacation, despite the shabbiness, and you can read about it in my August 2015 logs, if you wish.  We had Shannon and Jon for the first week, and then our friends Ann and Walter joined us when Shannon left, for the second week.

Most recently, we stayed oceanfront on Sunset Beach for the very first time, about a week ago (April 2016), in a house called Dune Our Thing.  This sounds fancier than it was.  It was a pet friendly oceanfront rental, and it was affordable, so that should give you some idea.  It may have been even shabbier than Beach Time from last summer; at any rate, the washer and dryer were rustier.  I quite enjoyed the "art" on the walls in this house, and I got used to the bright colors after a few days, and began to feel fondly about them.  We took Schubert, and spent some time just the two of us and our little brown dog (who was not much enamored of the beach).  We might have gotten lonely for family, but David and a friend of his joined us for a number of days, so that was a blessing.  Shawn had a blast setting up a ham radio and contacting many people in many places, from Uruguay to the United Arab Emirates to Russia and Ireland to Australia and back to Cary, NC!

So that is our history, to date, of beach vacation rentals.

To recap:

August 2002, Fisher's Wharf, OIB
April 2005, Amazing Grace, SB
August 2005, Southern Comfort, SB
April 2006, Conch Out, SB
April 2008, Tranquility Base, SB
August 2010, Carpenters' Cottage, SB
August 2011, Three Sisters, SB
August 2012, Sand in My Shoes, SB
August 2015, Beach Time, SB
April 2016, Dune our Thing, SB

Ten vacations, ten houses, ten sets of precious memories.

North Carolina April

I'm in a shabby, garishly bright beach house, sitting on the sofa with my drowsy dog next to me.  We never took the dog to the beach before, but here we are tasting of the "dog-friendly" variety of accommodations.

It is, however, ocean-front.  It's growing on me.  There is a lot to be said for three large sliding glass doors facing dunes, palm trees, and the ocean on the horizon.  There's something magical about waking up and walking down a wide, sunlit hallway to a bright space with views of sunshine speckling up from the ocean beyond, glittering like diamonds across the deep blue beneath the flat line that seems to indicate the end of the world in the distance.  Beyond a jungled growth of beachy flora, it is just far enough away to feel deceptively safe.

April at the beach is very different from August.  The heavy haze of August heat is absent, leaving colors clearer and light sharper.  The azaleas bloom delightfully.  New houses spring up on stilts here and there, smelling of lumber and sawdust.  A work crew replaces the wooden decking of beach accesses.  Sunrise arrives crisp and fresh, and you need a hoodie, or even a jacket, when you take Mr. Schubert out for his morning constitutional.

There is also a large ham radio antenna, central in the view from  my window.  This would be more disturbing were it not the temporary antenna that my dear husband himself brought along to try to contact Europe across the Atlantic.  Perhaps he will be successful.

I see a large red and white boat floating by.

We went for a walk along the seashore earlier today.  It was almost warm enough.  A shocking number of people had gathered around the pier to enjoy low tide. Shawn and I held hands, walked in the sunshine, and discovered that the tide pools were warm enough to wade in, warmer than the air.  Walking eastward was considerably warmer than walking westward.

The drive down was long.  Long drives get harder for me as I age.  At one point, the stiffness in my back, the numbness in my feet, the pain in my neck and the seemingly endlessness of the road made me feel sick on many levels.  I asked myself the infernal question that keeps coming back to haunt me, "Why do all my children have to be so far away from me?"

I remembered that I've written that sometimes I hate interstates.  That evening on the road, Jesus gently enlightened me that I ought not hate the thing that gets me to where I am going, difficult though the journey may be.

The interstate is not the problem.  The distance is the problem.  The interstate exists so that the distance can be crossed.  Someone has gone ahead of me and built roads, paved them, raised them into bridges that cross rivers and streams, forged on-ramps and off-ramps.

I need to be thankful, thankful for roads.  Sometimes I want what I want, and I want it now.  I want to pray and get a miracle, kaboom.  But when we pray for a flower or a fruit tree, God may answer by handing us a seed and a trowel.  When we pray for place and community, God may provide a donkey, a map and a path (I'm speaking metaphorically, but I trust that you can think of a situation in your life that fits the analogy).  Of course God can do miracles, but He set up the Universe to work in certain ways because He knows that process can be as important as product.  I think it is safe to point out that He doesn't seem to circumvent the process particularly often.  This calls for patience and endurance.  It also calls for a heart of gratitude and eyes to recognize the active presence of God in slow growth and long journeys.

After Jesus opened my eyes to this truth, the sun began to sink behind us.  We were driving southeast, between Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC.  Beautiful mountainous country.  The spring growth was out in its early glory, light green leaves, white and purple blossoms, foliage both delicate and brilliant, expanding along the mountainsides.  As the late, deeply slanted rays of sunlight shone from behind us onto the delicate pastel colors adorning the curves of the road ahead of us, the earth seemed like some other planet.  Vibrant yellow-green treetops glowed, almost pulsed, in front of luminous pink clouds that radiated against a backdrop of soft lavender sky.  If a painter had painted the scene exactly as it appeared, viewers of his painting would probably think his imagination had run away with him, into some sort of saccharine fantasy.  But it was all real.  Pastel, glowing, illuminated by the fading light of the lingering end of day.  If we had rolled the car windows down to breathe the air, I think it would have smelled like dew and apple blossoms.

There is a theme that I am picking up in WWII literature, a theme of hope because of a field of flowers, a blue sky, a bird or a butterfly that flutters back and forth across the barbed wire fences that separate a death camp from the freedom beyond.  Even in this desperately broken world, there is always a remnant of beauty, because God is eternal.

North Carolina in April is much more than a remnant of beauty.  It is a reminder that a road can end at the beach, and that light and joy await those who trust in the Lord.

God at work IV

I was feeling bad about the last post being off-topic for the month, but then I realized that it wasn't.

God is at work when He brings blue-sky blessings, and He is at work when He tests our faith strength with trials.

God is at work today, whether or not I can see Him.  He is invisible, and sometimes His activity is shrouded, but it always comes to light, for my good and for His glory.

A few years ago, my son David was sick.  I believe that he had a fungal infection in his lungs, although we'll never know for sure.  His saxophone reeds turned black when he played on them.  Every time he got a hint of a cold, it immediately brought on a serious fever, and within 24 hours he would be coughing blood.  Doctors kept prescribing antibiotics, which are not helpful when you are dealing with a fungus; in fact, they are counter-productive.  David had a few allergic reactions to these antibiotics.  It was a time of great stress.

I prayed and prayed and prayed.  God didn't seem to answer.  At one point, we even asked people to come over and anoint David with oil and pray for him.  Again, nothing happened right away.

This week I was reading in my Bible.  I was looking for a specific verse, to encourage me in my present valley.  I found it in the end of James 5:16 --

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (NLT)

I have to remind myself continually that I am righteous, not because I am perfect, for I know that I am far from perfect and have sinned many, many times.  I am righteous because I have been bought with the blood of Christ, washed clean, forgiven, and justified before God because of the righteousness of Christ that has been credited to me by grace, through faith.  Because of what Jesus has done for me, I can claim this promise, that my prayers have great power and will produce wonderful results.  Because of Jesus.

Finding and meditating on this verse was a great comfort to me, first because of what it means, and second because of the context where I found it.

Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.  (James 5:14, NLT)
Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.  (James 5:15, NLT)
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.  (James 5:16, NLT)

In reading the surrounding verses, I was reminded of when we called for people to come and pray for David and anoint him with oil.  David did not receive immediate healing on that afternoon of prayer. In fact, it took nearly two more years, but ultimately he has been healed amazingly.  During the time when Shawn and I were on our trip to Utah for our 25th anniversary in June 2012, David ran out of his asthma medicine.  He called us in Utah, and I started to scramble to figure out how to call the pharmacy back home and get a refill for him.  However, he stopped me.  "I feel good, Mom," he said.  "I think I'll be fine if I wait until you get home."  By the time we got home, David was feeling great, the best he had felt in years, he said.  He wanted to stay off the medicine.  His health has been so different ever since.  Last year, he even ran a half marathon, with no medicine at all.

God jogged these memories in me, I'm sure, to strengthen my faith and to remind me that He is in control, working on His perfect time table, attentive and able and always planning for our good and His glory.  He worked then, and He is working now.

I will end with some completely unrelated vacation pictures.  It was a joyful time, and it is good to focus on joy.

A funny picture of Shawn and Jon at the beach.

Shanny and Jon in the sunset.

People I love in front of Carolina blue sky.

Caswell Beach, on a day I got them out for a shark-free excursion.

Oak Island lighthouse at Caswell Beach.

A tug boat in Cape Fear.

On the ferry to the Fort Fisher Aquarium (another shark-free excursion day).

A seaworthy crow near a rope.

Silly seagulls.

A pelican on a post.  I cannot explain my delight over pelicans.

Me!  At the aquarium, looking at an eerie tank of jellyfish.

One of our little base camps at the beach.

The view from under our umbrella.

The little red shovel Shawn used to dig our umbrella in, each time he set it up.

 

God at work II

So I said I was going to be looking for God at work every day, and then I dropped off the internet for over two weeks.  I should have considered my vacation schedule before I set a goal for the month, because we were on vacation for two weeks--that's right, two weeks, which has never happened before and may never happen again--the two middle weeks of August, which in essence is "August."  We returned home late last night and woke up to school starting and the flowerbed (although lovingly tended by a neighbor) hitting its autumnal fade.

I may or may not post vacation pictures in an ensuing post.  We were at Sunset Beach, where we always go, and the pictures are largely the same as always, except not as good, because Lu wasn't there to man the camera, and I just kept taking redundant shots of the same shoreline, trying in vain to capture the grandeur of the expanse of sea and sky and sand that simply cannot be contained in a photo frame.  I guess you get a slight sense of the largeness when I try to photograph my people out swimming in the ocean, and all I get is a bunch of water, an angled horizon, and a black speck or two that are the heads of my family members, tiny spots in the massive backdrop.  Perspective perhaps, but not engaging photography.

We did some things that we'd never done before.

1. One night, we watched a meteor shower from the crow's nest above the house, and I saw my first-ever shooting star, and then another and another.
2. We finally went to Crabby Oddwater's, a restaurant just off the island, for seafood.  I got scallops, because scallops are what I like best.  But Jon and Shannon ordered a giant pot of steamed shellfish to split.  It was called "Bill's Hellacious Barge," and it came in a big, black, speckled enamel pot with a deep cover which they lifted to reveal heaps of clams, crabs, oysters, mussels and shrimp.  Armed with a few different tools for breaking and prying shells, and small pots of melted butter for dipping, they prevailed and ate every last bit.  One particularly stubborn oyster shell refused to crack under any pressure, but Jon was convinced that there was a prize inside.  We wrapped it in a napkin to take home.  However, upon exiting the restaurant, we found ourselves at the top of a long flight of stairs (everything out there is built on stilts). A patio lay at the bottom of the steps, pale in the moonlight.  Jon looked at Shannon with a light in his eye.  "Is that concrete?" he asked.  When she nodded, he chuckled and hauled off a fierce pitch of the oyster down to the cement where it landed with a splotch, spewing a few tablespoons of water across the ground.  He galloped down the stairs to retrieve it, finding it still intact, mostly, but finally cracked in such a way that he could wedge a knife in and open it, which he did with his pocket knife in the van, revealing the largest oyster of the evening, which he then ate with great satisfaction.
3. We went to an amusement park in Myrtle Beach, a sweet little place with carnival style rides, where you could buy wristbands and ride to your heart's content.  They open at 4 p.m. and stay open late into the night, lights twinkling bright beachy colors against black sky and blacker seawater in the distance.  After the heat of the day, the gentle night air felt luxurious.
4. We also saw a shark in the surf on Sunday evening, the 9th of August, as we went for a sunset stroll along our beach.  It was 3-4 feet long with a prototypical dorsal fin, right there in the water at the edge of the surf where there was a drop-off under the waters of the high tide.  We almost could have reached out and touched him, except that would have been scary.  The shark sighting was part of the reason why we went on a few more excursions than usual, but my crazy people insisted that they were safe anyway, and went back into the ocean numerous times while I prayed for safety during the day and thanked God for another day free from shark attacks every night.
5. We grilled with charcoal at the beach. When we first started taking beach vacations, we just cooked inside, in the kitchen of whatever house we had rented.  Then we started getting a rental package that included beach chairs, umbrella, beach wagon and gas grill.  The trouble is, that package just doubled in price for the week from $100 to $215.  Since we were there for two weeks, it would have cost us $430.  Pish.  Relative to that price, we considered purchasing a small gas grill at a local WalMart and leaving it behind at the house!  In the end, we just used the charcoal grill that came with the house.  The food tasted wonderful.
6. Jon rented a surf board.  He rented it on the wildest and roughest of days, perhaps not at the most advantageous time in the tides and it was, as he said, "Wicked hard," so that was interesting and somewhat exciting, if not exhilarating.  
7. We saw sea turtles hatch.  We've noticed their nests marked off along the beach many times, but this was the first year we were actually there for a hatch.  The rest of our party saw 7-8 turtles come out of the nest and toddle down to the sea, but I'd been babysitting dinner and only got in on the the last one.  I was so very thankful to the Lord for allowing me to get there before it was entirely over.  I know He saved that last baby turtle with me in mind.
8. We didn't leave on the first Saturday morning we were there.  It is truly a wonderful thing to stay for more than a week.  Everyone else packs up on Friday and leaves on Saturday morning.  There is a sad sense of desperate running back to the ocean for one last swim, one last lick of the waves on your feet, one last view of the stretch of blue beyond the dunes.  That first Friday we were there, Friday August 14, we did not have to do this.  We relaxed, settled in, watched the others scramble while we fired up the charcoal again.  Even Shannon, who was only staying one week, didn't have to leave until Sunday evening, so we had this blessed time of not hurrying, not leaving, not feeling the pang of the end of vacation when it usually hits.

Speaking of Shannon, it was fantastic to have a week with her, a-week-and-a-day, to be exact.  She arrived from Boston at the Raleigh-Durham airport on Saturday, August 8, and everything had gone smoothly, and she was safe and sound, though tired from an early morning flight (she'd had to be at Logan at 4:30 a.m.).  We'd driven to Durham the day before and spent the night at David's.  We picked up Shannon at 8, when her plane arrived, then went back to David's for breakfast and to hang out for awhile since it didn't do to leave early; our beach house wouldn't be ready for us until 4.

David surprised us by driving down with us that Saturday and spending the night.  It was his only opportunity, since he was on a schedule that had him working 12 days straight, August 10-21, but it was great to have some ocean time with him, bobbing in the swells.  There is something so healing and therapeutic about being in warm, salty water under a sunny blue sky with very nearly your whole family.

We'd thought David would be able to join us over the-weekend-when-we-didn't-have-to-leave, so I'd scheduled for Shannon to fly back to Logan from Raleigh-Durham late that Sunday night, thinking the two of them would drive back to Durham together.  Since my original plan didn't work out, we drove Shannon to Durham ourselves and met David for a barbecue dinner at the Q-Shack before Shannon's flight, which wasn't a half-bad way to spend an afternoon and evening.  God was again with her on the return journey, and there were no hitches; she arrived safe and sound at home around midnight after a car ride, a flight, a jaunt on the T, and an Uber taxi at the end.

We rented a Jon a bike so he could explore the island and try riding on the beach.  This, I believe, may have been slightly more satisfying than the surfboard rental.  At any rate, I liked it because it kept him farther from the sharks.

In the meantime, our friends Walter and Ann arrived from New York to spend the second week with us.  Thus, we had a second week full of good fellowship and conversation, new board games (they brought their favorites), and introducing beloved friends to the wonders of an ocean vacation.  Ann was an outstanding boogie-boarder, and strangers along the beach asked us, "How does she do that?"  She is fifty, which I will be in approximately four more months, and I am dreading it.  Although, it heartens me to see her riding a boogie-board in to shore, laughing like a kid the whole way.  She also regaled us with tales of how to prepare for and perform in an Ironman triathlon, which she already did this summer (that's a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2 mile run). Not that I would ever do this, or even attempt to, or even take a swipe at training for it.  But.  She's my age, and she did it, so 50 must not be all that old.

It was a good vacation, and God placed His fingerprints all over it.  A fortnight, it was, and a fortnight is a good length of time, time enough to settle and relax and feel at home.  I did everything I wanted to do except in the reading and writing and sleeping department.  I did not get in as much reading and writing and sleeping as I had hoped, but it must have been meant to be.

Scallops in my belly, color on my skin, sand on the floor-mats of my van, the sound of the wind in my ears, a plastic bag of shells tucked into the corner of my suitcase.

There is so much to be thankful for.  God is good.  God is faithful.  God makes oceans and galaxies, shooting stars and baby turtles.  He gives us good food, good friends, good memories, families, sunshine and loving hearts.  He also sends a thunderstorm now and then, to provide your sunburn a day to heal, to drive the sharks back out to deep waters.  I can trust this God, the only wise God, the sovereign creator and ruler of the Universe.  He has my back.  He has an unthwartable eternal plan.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? 

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

Since he did not spare even his own Son 

but gave him up for us all, 

won’t he also give us everything else?

Romans 8:31-32 NLT 

Our Chicago adventure

I am not a big city person.

We lived in Syracuse, NY for 25 years, and never once in that time did I set foot in NYC, except perhaps at an airport to make a connecting flight (I have a recollection of walking miles through a makeshift maze on the tarmac at JFK).

So.  When our kids gave us tickets to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Christmas, I was quite excited, but also somewhat frightened and nervous.  Chicago is not NYC, but it is a big city.

The day arrived, February 28, and we set out in our car, I clutching a file of information gleaned and printed off the internet: maps, where to park, where to eat, phone numbers, prices, addresses, reservation confirmation numbers, and of course the symphony tickets--which I had an intense fear of losing--securely fastened to the other papers in the file with the biggest, sturdiest paperclip I could find.

Shawn told me in no uncertain terms that I could not wear my new cowboy boots to the Symphony, so I had tried to put together an acceptable outfit from what else I had, ending up with gray and black and white, which turned out to be good.

We drove to Chicago, and the Saturday traffic was blessedly light.  By some miracle, we got a reasonably early start, so when we sat at an intersection on Michigan for three or four light cycles, waiting for a jam to break up on the cross road, we could just relax and watch the happenings and not worry about being late to anywhere.  One irate lady pulled around in a reckless U-turn and peeled away in the opposite direction, just seconds before the dam of cars gave way and traffic resumed its flow.

We passed our hotel and continued on to the Millenium South underground parking garage where we could leave our car for up to 24 hours, paying half of what it cost to use valet parking at the hotel.  What a funny feeling to swerve into the middle of the street and swoop down into a secret parking lot under the city.  We parked and then we sat there for awhile in our car together, breathing, feeling the victory of getting this far with no mishaps.

Slightly shaky, I emerged from the vehicle, still grasping my precious file, into which I had now also clipped our parking claim ticket.  While Shawn unloaded our two small bags from the trunk, I photographed our car's location with my phone, for future reference.  Together, we stuffed the six bottles of water we had brought into the larger of our two bags.  And then we were ready to take on Chicago.

Our hotel, the Blackstone Renaissance by Marriott, was quite lovely, although the front desk was not immediately apparent.  When we located it, the service was polished and polite, if not warm and friendly.  I guess big cities just aren't warm and friendly.  We did not pay the $40 upgrade to a room facing out Michigan Avenue over the lake, but accepted the room we got free with Marriott points from previous travel.  It was on the 19th floor and faced south, so we actually had a very decent view of the lake if we were willing to look out an an angle.

The room itself was spacious for a city hotel, finished with a marble floor in the entry and bathroom, and sleek, artistic furnishings.

There is Shawn, checking out the view.

This was our magnificent marble bathroom: marble, glass, stainless steel, and black and white wallpaper.

I have written before about how the current popular style of kitchens done in cold white, gray and stainless does not appeal to me.  Our hotel room had a similar effect.  Although I could recognize that it was decorated with the most up-to-date design style, very nicely, I could not feel quite cozy there.  We turned up the heat, but with marble floors and slick leather chairs, a chill pervaded.

The award winning, iron chef restaurant in the hotel, Mercat a la Planxa, was slightly tempting.  Who is not intrigued by iron chef prepared tapas?  However, the online menu was either written in Spanish, or else carried virtually exclusively items of which I had never heard.  One can be adventurous in such situations when one is not forced to avoid gluten, peanuts and kiwi.  Food allergies put a crimp in one's ability to try new things.

Eschewing the stress of the unknown, we walked a couple of blocks to Lou Malnati's, that famous Chicago pizza joint which, amazingly, offers gluten free options.

After we both warmed up with bowls of minestrone soup (mine sans pasta), I had sole piccata with spinach.  Shawn had pizza.

We ate early, having missed lunch, which resulted in easy seating, good service and plenty of time to return to the hotel and get ready for the symphony.  In fact, we had so much time, we turned on the Duke-Syracuse basketball game for awhile and tried to spot David in the stands.  Being chilly, I looked for an extra blanket in the closet.  There was none, but there was a sort of robe, so I threw it over my legs as I reclined on the bed, and it was a very decent solution to the issue.

I have to say that I like the type of hotel where they offer complimentary hot drinks in the lobby, where breakfast is included in the price of the room, and where they stock extra blankets in the closet.  I just do.  But I guess those kinds of hotels are not in big cities.  I gather that in big cities there are two kinds of hotels: the ones where you pay for amenities, and the ones where there are no amenities.

Walking three blocks to Orchestra Hall, through a light drizzle of hazy snow, was festive.  We were there before we knew it, and then up high to the balcony where we found our first row seats.  My chest was a little tight at the extreme height of it, but it was very exciting.

Once I fell down the steep balcony steps in an auditorium at Eastman School of Music.  We were there for an All-State concert, and I remember the stomach convulsing sensation of losing my footing, reaching out for something to steady me, finding nothing, no handrail anywhere, and landing squarely on the back of a strange man's shoulder, three or four steps below where I'd begun.  This balcony may have been even steeper, but it did have handrails, which I held tightly, and I walked very slowly, and fortunately we were early, not holding anyone up behind us.  I arrived safely at my seat.

That's our program sitting on the sort of shelf that was in front of our seats.  You can see that there were two mezzanines and a ground floor beneath us.  They even had seating behind the orchestra on the stage.  And by the time the concert started, nearly every seat in the house was full!

Here is another picture, showing more of the beautiful architecture in Orchestra Hall.

And then the orchestra came out.  So many basses!  My goodness!

I read the program notes while I waited.  We were there for Tchaikovsky's 6th, Pathetique.   The notes explained that this was his last symphony, and that he died very shortly after introducing it.  At its first performance, it was so emotional and brooding, people did not know how to respond, especially at the end, which just faded away with basses throbbing a note with the unprecedented dynamic marking of pppppp.

The music began, and I listened.  It did not sound much like Tchaikovsky, to me, but the program notes had said to expect brooding tones.  These were certainly brooding tones, although every now and again I thought I recognized the glimmer of a phrase from The Nutcracker or Swan Lake.  The clarinet was fantastic, and pivotal to the entire work.  A middle movement began and ended with gorgeous, birdlike flute solos.  A percussionist played the tympani, and a lone woman sat still as stone in a chair throughout, rising once to hit a large cymbal.  As the music drew to a close in the final movement, the woman stood up and moved over to the cymbal once more.  The orchestra crescendoed.  As the crescendo peaked, the woman hit the cymbal, and the audience burst into applause.

I thought, "That wasn't right.  Where were the basses?  Where was the mysterious fading away of the sound?"

The lights came up and people got out of their seats.  I sat, confused.  Finally I asked Shawn, "Is it over?"  He kindly explained to me that we had just heard Scriabin's Symphony #2 in C minor.

I had not had any idea that we were going to hear Scriabin.

That was the first hour of the concert.  The second half really was the Tchaikovsky, and sounded like Tchaikovsky.  Really, after the Scriabin, it hardly sounded brooding at all.  Until the end . . .  the basses at the end lived up to all that I had expected or hoped.

So it was a fantastic concert.

We walked back to our hotel, again through just enough snow to make it feel like a holiday.  Upon our arrival, our room greeted us with a puff of warmth; our attempts with the thermostat had finally been effective.  We downed a bunch of our bottled water and fell asleep on a supremely comfortable bed.

Sunday morning we arose, showered, and opted not to order oatmeal from room service for $15 per bowl.  While I packed up, Shawn went down to the Starbucks in the lobby and procured a couple of cups of good coffee.  It seemed rather anticlimactic to walk out of that room, but there you have it.  Suitcases and coffee in hand, we set out up Michigan Avenue once more, this time to find our car.

Which we did!  Without any trouble!  We paid our parking fee with a credit card at a machine, then drove away without saying good-bye to anyone, making a right turn onto Congress Parkway and heading out to Chicago's northwest suburbs where we planned to attend The Orchard Church, church of my favorite broadcast preacher, Colin S. Smith.

Sunday morning traffic was relatively light.  We arrived at the church in about a half hour, half the time the mapping programs had predicted.

We parked.  We walked in.  Shawn pointed over to the right of the entrance.  And there he was, Colin S. Smith himself, in the flesh, chatting with someone.  Shawn said, "He's taller than I expected."

I could not believe it.  The church has four campuses, and Pastor Colin rotates among them without prior announcement.  We'd visited once before, and he had not been there, only a taped broadcast of him preaching (which was still a blessing, and I still remember that he spoke on Joel 2, which on the heels of our move here was exactly what we needed).  But last Sunday, there he was in the flesh.

I tried not to hope too hard.  I thought they may have taped him earlier, and he might not hang around for the third service.

But he did.  He preached.  Live.  Right there in the front of the church which is largish but not gigantic.  He preached about Joseph, which is pretty much one of my favorite Bible stories (except that they are almost all my favorites).

And at the end, Shawn said, "Let's go meet him."  I wouldn't have.  I would have been content just to see him and hear him and stand across the sanctuary from him.  But we actually approached him, and he was so kind, and interested, and not in a hurry.

I could not believe it.  Could. Not. Believe. It.

When you've known someone through his books and tapes, been taught by him from afar, when you've used his CDs--ones you've nearly worn out--to play you softly to sleep at night with his lovely Scottish brogue speaking thoughts about the beauty of Christ, because your husband is away on a business trip and you are scared and lonely and need something to drive out the fearful thoughts, when you have used his materials in small groups and watched him on videos--when you meet this person, and he is kind, and he actually looks right into your eyes with compassion, it is so overwhelming . . .

So overwhelming that you think, "If it is this amazing and overwhelming to meet a teacher, a man, a mortal human, then how absolutely, unutterably, inconceivably wonderful and overwhelming and thrilling is it going to be to see Jesus Himself someday?"  I cannot even imagine.

So.  There was more to the trip.  We ate a nice brunch and had a safe drive home, and finally arrived to discover nine inches of snow, plus all the extra snow that the plow had pushed into the mouth of the driveway.

But it was all good, and surely a weekend I will always remember.  What a miracle that it went the way it did, everything working like clockwork.  Shawn says, "If you are ever tempted to doubt the goodness of God, you will have to remember our Chicago adventure."

Amen.