Vacations End?

"This God - his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him." - David in Psalm 18.

I have a serious case of post-vacation funkiness. No matter how hard I try to avoid winding up in this state of mind, I always end up here. For me, this particular vacation was going to be perfect. It was located at a resort with my parents, siblings and assorted grafted in wives and husbands on the Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver, British Columbia. If a place has in it's name "sunshine" or "coast" I want for me to be there always. Yes, I want for me to be there FOREVER.

That's kind of the way I view heaven: vacation forever! And I was viewing this as the vacation to end all vacations. I was so excited about this one that I disregarded all the wiser voices in my head saying not to get my hopes up too high, or to seek this experience as the end.

I saw it as the end: the end of being a fund-raising flunky (sometimes the way I feel), the end of stiffling, mind-numbing heat (it was that), and (with my parents and sibblings around) the end of such weighty parenting responsibilities as wiping my childrens' bottoms. Oddly nobody took care of my last request. Its amazing how selfish people are when they're on vacation.

Welp, we drove home last night (after three rear-end-aching days in the van), and I was innocently reminded by someone this morning that it was "back to real life". I smiled and nodded while I almost imploded and worlds went bang in my head. I wanted this vacation to be the END. Now I should get to live happily ever after.

I really, really shouldn't be complaining. I'm sitting in an air-conditioned Starbucks for crying out loud! I'm writing, pretending to have devotions and do missionary stuff. I really don't have it bad. Ha - bad would be stepping outside into the scorching heat again.

But my actual reality is different. The reality that I'd love to believe in before I die is so different. The reality is that God is my shield and that his ways are perfect. I know so, because it says it right here in my Bible. And it says so in my blog. You can believe everything you read here.

So maybe while I wouldn't have minded never waking back up on the dock after my 3 mile swim (I had to get that in here. Can you believe I swam 3 miles? Yes, I'm pretty amazing! My increased body-fat means I can float practically forever.), God has different plans for me. Apparently they don't involve pure, undistilled self-indulgence. Dang.

I'm writing trying to convince myself of this morning. Thankfully, I don't have to be convinced, I just have to trust. Trust that God is the one that knows about life, God is the one who knows our times and seasons and God is the one in control. Thankfulness might help as well. "Thanks that my vacation is over God."

So I'll quit licking it and put down my idol of vacation and attempt to put one foot in front of the other today, even though my rear really is killing me. Actually it's not hurting at all, but it sounds like such a clever way to wind up this post - sort of "Doogie Howser-ish".