Discussion regarding our oldest son’s sixteenth birthday began on his fifteenth birthday.
What can I say? Half the fun of anything planned is found in the actual planning.
Can I get a witness? Any planners out there nodding heads in complete agreement of that reality? If you’re not a planner, if you’re more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of personality, hang with me, cause honestly, I grew up with those kind of people. I love and appreciate the balance they bring to life. Therefore, this post is a place that includes you too.
One of the challenges for forward-focused individuals is remembering to simmer down and soak in the beauty of the present. Pretty sure I’ve heard something along the lines of today being a gift, which is why it’s called the present. Imagery like that reigns me in when I get carried away with planning tomorrow.
Sometimes thinking about tomorrow doesn’t excite us or motivate us, it burdens us. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” NLT Matthew 6:34
There are times in life that we can hardly handle the problems of today, and instead of waking up and asking the Lord to just walk with us through the next twelve to eighteen hours of our wakefulness, we increase the load of today, by our burden over tomorrow, or next week, or six months from now.
Which stirs my mind with some more powerful images. Images of the sea. Reminding me of that sixteenth birthday trip we planned for a year.
When we asked our son if an experience or a party would be the most memorable way to mark his sixteenth birthday, he answered “Experience.” A deep-sea fishing experience specifically. Well, that sounded like an awesome idea. We’re always down for a good party, but a trip that requires packing our bags, getting on a plane, and heading somewhere tropical, I mean, how could we not get on board with mapping out how to make that birthday wish come true?
To make it happen, we utilized our Disney Vacation Club points, heading to their resort on Oahu. Super exciting. What a beautiful resource to have our accommodations covered, allowing for the expense of this ten-hour private deep-sea fishing excursion experience. Oh, the give-and-take of life. Thankfully, our son is quite aware of such life principles, and packed his Dramamine.
Unfortunately, most of our kids inherited their mom’s sensitivity to motion. Unfortunately.
Oh dear.
As we know, the anti-emetic knocked out our birthday boy. He was so drowsy. And when he was awake, he multi-tasked fishing with puking. Only like three times. Or maybe four. Did I say, oh dear? Yes. Yes, I did.
The Dad, who hasn’t a lick of motion sickness, not a lick, admitted that even he was feeling a little uneasy with the ocean swells. Waves have such a way of reminding us of our vulnerability. We look at the power in a wave and realize our inability to withstand such force. The captain reassured him that it was normal for Pacific waters. The waters are just rough. And once that was communicated as something to be expected, something that is navigated on a daily basis, reassurance was able to settle in the minds of the passengers.
We don’t welcome rough waters. Sometimes we get so tossed around it makes us sick. But that possibility shouldn’t keep us from getting on board.
If we stay the course, stick with the plan, fight some possible feelings of fear, endure the not-so-perfect conditions, we might just look back on a boatload of priceless memories we netted in the process.
In unstable waters, cling to the One who is stable.
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James 1:6 NIV
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Ephesians 4:14 NIV
