Sailing Away!

Oh, I love cruises. I hate work.

Last week my entire extended family (14 of us) and I got on a beautiful ship and sailed away to Mexico. We enjoyed the lovely see through blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico and all that goes with it. On Wednesday, for Marty's birthday, we celebrated by going to Xcaret and floating down this underground river that flows through caves and some of the structures at Xcaret. That was so relaxing. You could also snorkel there and see gorgeous blue fish or yellow and black striped fish. Several times I lifted my head up out of the water and began to talk to my brother and sister-in-law and neither one of them were around me. Once I grabbed a hold of Danielle's fin only to figure out that it was some 13 year old boy that I had been talking to and he had just been staring at me for 30 seconds while I heard Danielle's voice echo through the cave. I laughed for a good minute.

My favorite part of the day though was going into the butterfly aviary. Butterflies are so gorgeous - pink, yellow, red, orange. They were everywhere! We got to see dolphins that day and jaguars and a Mayan cemetary. It was all very educational and wonderful.

The next day we went shopping in Cozumel. Loved that! Got some pottery pieces that tell the story of the Mexican people. Yeah! That afternoon we went to a beach called Paradise Island and Matt, Danielle, Nick (my cousin's husband) and I rode in Kayaks and jumped on one of those trampolines they put in the water. I laughed more on that trampoline than I did all week.

Over all I had this incredibly fantastic vacation and I came home way too soon. However, upon returning Marty and I received incredible news that our friends Sarah and Phil gave birth to a beautiful 6 pound 7.8 ounce baby boy named Samuel. He's absolutely adorable.

One thing I regret however is that I missed an incredible opportunity to put the Lord in the center of our rejoicing. Doesn't it always seem that way? That you go away on vacation and, at least for me, my devotional life goes on vacation too. When I got back on land I realized how much I hadn't talked to the Lord all week and how much I hadn't spent time with him. At that point my need for him was so great and my disappointment in myself was extreme. I want to learn how to put Him in the center of our rejoicing - not forget Him during our greatest times together. I've got a lot of learning to do.

Learning about grace,
Joy