To Just Be | Personal
It’s no secret. Our life has been crazy these last few months! Every year our family goes on a vacation (normally to the mountains of Colorado so we can tent camp. The boys fly fish while the girls hike, drink coffee by the fire, and go to the hot springs). Rough, I know.
But this year was different. It seemed like almost everyone on my side of the family was in transition. Michael was graduating and we were packing up our little apartment to move from Saint Louis to KCMO. My younger brother was graduating college in Virginia and was still waiting to hear back from his new company in Indianapolis when his start date would be. Heather and Gabe were in full swing in youth ministry in Michigan. No one knew where we would be and at what time! So, it only made sense to nix family vacation this year.
Until about three weeks ago. If you should know anything about the Davidson side of the family, it’s that we are spur of the moment, last minute, flexible people! And this time was no different! I remember driving in my car thinking, “Gosh. We should all go to the beach.” And so, I picked up my cell phone and passed along my thoughts to my mama in Colorado. “Well you know me,” she said, “I’m always up for going to the beach but I’m going to have to run it by dad.” I hung up–pretty excited that this might actually turn into a reality. And as anyone who’s really excited about something does, I picked up the phone to share the news! I dialed my brother in Virginia, “Hey bud! Sooo, I had this idea we should all go to the beach. What do you think?” Haha, he was immediately on board! And then the Davidson phone line lit up! Soon we were all calling each other, discussing ideas, possibilities, dates, and vwa-la! We had a vacation planned! To Hilton Head beach we were going!
The problem with being spontaneous is sometimes your plans don’t work out exactly how you think. A quick, easy (once wide open) standby flight to Atlanta became dreadfully oversold. So we improvised people! We rented a car and drove 16 hours, through 7 states to get to the beach! It’s all about the memories right!?
What awaited us there was a beach house with a 5 minute walk to the salty ocean and smooth shores. A pool for late night games of five twenty-something year olds shouting Marco-Polo under the stars. A grill for steaks and BBQ chicken. A big table for fun (and yes) very competitive card games. Lawn chairs to drink morning coffee on, lizards for Ty to watch, villas within walking distance for ice cream on warm evenings. Jet skies, sea turtles, and countless dolphins. It was being together as a family.
I didn’t connect my phone to the internet the first few days. I didn’t realize how refreshing, how amazingly revitalizing it was to unplug. For days I was able to just be. Be with my family, be relaxed. I wasn’t thinking about new marketing strategies or feeling bad I hadn’t written a blog in a week. I didn’t have my camera and didn’t feel like I was needing to take pictures. It’s amazing how much life can come from sitting back and unwinding.
It was such a sweet time for Michael and I to process. To let the events of what had just happened and what was about to happen settle in. Time to think, pray, rejoice in the new stage of life we were about to enter into! It was five days of laughing, sharing, feeling, processing, and memory making. So, though impromptu it may have been, God knew. He knew what I needed.
To step back and just be.